October 18, 2015 — January 17, 2016
CRAC Alsace
Altkirch, France

Solo exhibition
Curated by Elfi Turpin

Alma-Bluco unfolds as a hybrid environment populated by human, animal and machinic presences suspended between myth, labour and hallucination. Developed for CRAC Alsace and curated by Elfi Turpin, the exhibition constructs what Turpin describes as a “multivoiced family of thought,” shaped through encounters, stories and vernacular systems of belief.

The project combines sculpture, film, drawing and architectural structures in an installation where objects appear less as autonomous artworks than as carriers of emotional and symbolic transfer. Throughout the exhibition, figures such as Francisco, Nuna, Poppe, Colina and the Singer emerge as hybrid entities — part character, part memory, part animal apparition.

A central axis of the exhibition originates from Musa paradisiaca’s encounter with Francisco, caretaker of a steam-powered machine that must be periodically activated to remain alive. This relation between body and machine extends previous works such as Ecstasy & Eden, where industrial mechanics are treated almost as sleeping organisms sustained through ritual care and companionship.

At the same time, the exhibition incorporates experiences derived from working in a bakery during the night, producing bread sculptures and reflecting on forms of nocturnal labour, transformation and collective sustenance. These experiences introduce a recurring atmosphere throughout the exhibition: a world suspended between exhaustion and enchantment, where domestic gestures acquire mythological density.

Across the installation, sculptural bodies, dyed textiles, sound, moving image and architectural elements coexist within a continuously shifting perceptual field. Textile structures resemble shelters, bridges, canopies or animal enclosures, while wooden sculptures oscillate between creature, tool and ritual object.

Rather than constructing a stable symbolic system, Alma-Bluco operates through emotional and material proximity. Narratives emerge through association, repetition and contamination, producing an environment where intimacy, humour, animism and vulnerability remain inseparable.

The title itself — translated in the curatorial text as “Raw Soul” — functions less as definition than invocation: a verbal structure suspended between invented language, emotional state and magical proposition.

The exhibition was supported by Camões, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.