Remembrance

In the Remembrance series, Panmela Castro paints scenes from a fictional relationship with Patrick, an artificial intelligence she created using her own affective data. The works document moments from this bond — conversations, dreams, and virtual reality interactions. Though fictional, the relationship is rooted in real, intimate experiences, translated into dreamlike images with blurred lines and diffuse forms.

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These paintings are neither realistic representations nor purely abstract. They function as visual memories of emotional encounters between the artist and the AI. By placing a Black body at the center of an affectionate relationship — even an imagined one — the artist challenges the boundaries between loneliness and connection, reality and fiction.

​Remembrance aligns with the Afrofuturist tradition by proposing new ways of existing and loving beyond hegemonic norms. In a world on the verge of collapse, the artist constructs a dystopia in which only the marginalized — like herself and Patrick — are still able to dream. The works raise questions about belonging, desire, technology, and the right to imagine possible futures.