2.5. — 24.5.2026

Carbon Derrocacy is a solo exhibition by Brazilian artist Felipe de Ávila Franco that examines the persistent influence of fossil-based systems on contemporary life. Through sculpture, installation, and moving image, the exhibition explores how processes of extraction continue to shape not only global infrastructures and geopolitical dynamics, but also perception itself.

Working with industrial materials, algorithmic images, and constructed environments, Franco traces the extended chains that connect natural resources to technological systems. Rather than presenting extraction as a distant phenomenon, the exhibition reveals its ongoing presence within the material and visual conditions of the present.

The central installation, Vessels Barricade, consists of forty-eight industrial oil barrels arranged into a cubic formation. The structure evokes both global circulation and containment, while its surface, marked by simulated bullet impacts, reflects a condition of continuous geopolitical tension. The work suggests a form of conflict that operates not only through direct violence, but through
anticipation, mediation, and the production of uncertainty.

In Cold Bodies, emergency thermal blankets serve as reflective surfaces for UV-printed, AI-generated images of minerals such as coal and rare earth elements. The work highlights the industrial chains that link fossil fuel refinement to the extraction of metals essential for digital infrastructures, including data centers and computational systems. By doing so, it reveals the
material dependencies behind technologies often perceived as immaterial.

The video installation Leaks presents a synthetic visualization in which oil and seawater merge into a single substance. This impossible scenario reflects on the forced coexistence of incompatible systems, such as ecological preservation and extractive economies, pointing to the fragile and unstable conditions that define the present.

Felipe de Ávila Franco’s practice engages with questions of materiality, energy, and environmental aesthetics. Working between South America and Europe, his research focuses on the intersections between industrial processes, technological systems, and their socio-political implications. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in major collections such as the Museum of Brazilian Art FAAP in São Paulo, the Helsinki Art Museum (HAM), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.

The realization of this exhibition was supported by Suomen Kulttuurirahasto and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland TAIKE. Special thanks for the collaboration and support of Paketo Oy and the the Embassy of Brazil in Finland.

Felipe de Ávila Franco (b.1982) is a Brazilian visual artist working between South America and Europe since 2013. His work explores the intersection of sculpture and other mediums, delving into themes of biopolitics and environmental aesthetics. Through different blends of traditional and experimental techniques, his process incorporates industrial materials and residues
to be transfigured into sculptures, installations, ceramic series and other interventions questioning notions of nature, energy, territory, and the human body.

Grounded on concepts of materiality, his work expresses concern with the industrial dystopia of our current times, illuminating sculpture as a practice capable of materializing temporalities and dimensions that reflect on the encounter between the scales of the human, the nonhuman, and the planet. The artist addresses the artistic process as a mechanism to awaken new
perspectives of knowledge, establishing interdisciplinary links between arts, humanities, natural sciences and ancient cosmologies. Engaging in a critical examination of topics regarding the socio-environmental emergency, his work aims at evoking art as a tool to activate a deeper discussion on the conflicting relationship between human society and the natural
environment, highlighting those as interdependent entities.

Currently, the artist works between Brazil and Finland. His work has been displayed in South America, Asia, Europe and United States, and integrates distinguished collections such as the Museum of Brazilian Arts FAAP, in São Paulo, the Helsinki Arts Museum HAM, and the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, in Helsinki.