In the conception of Panmela Castro's Affective Drift, the fortuity is the subject of a search for belonging. Life is guided by meetings by chance, in a process of feeling liberated to float. Moments of encountering that are aleatory and others that were already written. In this series, the artist surrenders to this movement in territories where she is led by the network of affection she develops by letting herself go.

During some weeks of the year 2024, the artist set up a studio on a small balcony in Lisbon, adorned with plants and Portuguese tiles where she received friends, newly acquainted people, and strangers to be portrayed in her drift process.

Pati, a Brazilian of East Asian origin, is a visual artist and poet, irreverent and very talkative. She came into Panmela's life via the internet, offering to be painted, an invitation that Panmela readily accepted. Pati is from the third generation of Japanese descendants in Brazil and, at the time of this meeting, had been living in Porto, Portugal, for seven years. On a sunny afternoon in the Lisbon studio, the two, like old pals, spent joyful moments until the work was finished.