Pau-Campeche

Plants do not begin at the beginning. They emerge from the middle, from the thick of things, neither fully of the earth nor wholly of the sky. They weave through the world, stretching roots into the soil while reaching for the atmosphere, always moving, always connecting. They invite us to travel with them, to follow their paths across time and space.

Flávia Vieira, an artist trained in Fine Arts in Porto and based in Brazil for the past fifteen years, works across sculpture, textiles, and ceramics to explore the cultural histories of making. Her research into natural dyes informs her concept of “botanical diasporas”—the ongoing entanglement of nature, history, and culture as seeds migrate and plants are uprooted and transplanted elsewhere, affecting their environments. In Pau-Campeche, she unravels this idea through filmic and sculptural landscapes inspired by the tree of the same name.

Also known as logwood, Pau-Campeche is both a witness to and agent in the intertwined histories of colonial trade and artistic expression. Its deep black dye, extracted from its core, once draped European elites in shimmering darkness, transforming pigment into power. But the tree itself was always elusive—prized, extracted, yet never fully possessed. As a symbol of desire and displacement, it reminds us that vegetal lives cast long shadows, whispering unfinished histories, inviting us to listen.