Panmela Castro
Rio de Janeiro, 1981
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Panmela Castro is a visual artist whose artistic practice is driven by relationships of affection and otherness. Based on the idea of "affective drift", she proposes chance as the subject of an incessant search for a sense of belonging. Based on the thought of performance, her artistic production converges in works that permeate painting, sculpture, installation, video and photography. She has a degree in painting from the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2007), a master's degree in Contemporary Artistic Processes from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (2011), and is a postgraduate student on the Human Rights, Responsibility and Global Citizenship course at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (2023).
Her work is part of international collections, including the Stedelijk Museum and ICA Miami, as well as major collections in Brazil such as Instituto Inhotim, MASP, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes and Museu de Arte do Rio. Among her most recent and noteworthy exhibitions, she is currently taking part in the long-term show at the Stedelijk Museum entitled "Tomorrow is a Different Day - 1980 to now"; she took part in the Bienal das Amazônias (Belém, 2023); "Dos Brasis: Arte e Pensamento Negro" at Sesc Belenzinho (São Paulo, 2023); "Ana Mendieta: Terra Abre Caminhos" at Sesc Pompeia (São Paulo, 2023); "Funk" at MAR (Rio de Janeiro, 2023); "Histórias Brasileiras" at MASP (São Paulo, 2022); "Quilombo: vida, problemas e aspirações do negro" at the Inhotim Institute (Brumadinho, 2022); Mercosur Biennial (Porto alegre, 2022); "Um Defeito de Cor" at MAR (Rio de Janeiro, 2022); "Negros Na Piscina" at the Pinacoteca do Estado do Ceará (2022); "Brasil Futuro: as formas da democracia" at the National Museum of the Republic; "Enciclopédia Negra" at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2022) and MAR (2021); "Escrito no Corpo" at Tanya Bonakdar in New York (2022) and Carpintaria (2021); as well as the solo exhibitions "Deriva Afetiva Dakar", Instituto Inclusartiz (2023); "Retratos Relatos" at Sesc Paraty (2023) and "Ostentar é Estar Viva" at Galeria Luisa Strina (2021).
Social activist and protagonist of the fourth feminist wave, according to Heloisa Buarque de Holanda in her book "Feminist Explosion", Panmela Castro is the founder of the non-profit organization Rede NAMI. She is active in collective work to promote women's rights and combat domestic violence, having reached more than 200,000 people in the last decade. For her efforts in this area of human rights, she has received numerous honors, including being named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, the DVF Awards, and being listed by the prestigious US magazine Newsweek as one of the 150 courageous women who are changing the world.