Exhibition | SOMEONE LIKE THIS AND THAT

Feb 27

4 min read

February 27th to April 10th, 2026

Exhibition view. Photography: Samuel Duarte

SOLO EXHIBITION:

Guilherme Figueiredo

TEXT:

Odete

Every time I go into Korok Forest, I surrender to the fact it is more real than my bedroom. Wait, why am I writing in English? No, let me try again—ouch!—Every time, no!, always, also no! : Every time I go : Every time I enter—every time I enter where? Every time I go into Korok Forest, I remember who I am. Do I remember myself in English? Mother tongue… “Can I kiss you?” “Sure, but no tongue.” “Yeah, of course, whatever you like.”

Every time I go into Korok Forest, I remember I haven’t kissed anyone in ages—that I’ve forgotten about this sticky membrane that is the other. A kiss is a reminder that reality is a mucous membrane. A mucous membrane and a portal. I start playing the Zelda game by getting out of a hole, a tunnel, a shrine of resurrection. I live again, over and over, always emerging from this porosity. Reality is introduced to me. X to jump, Y for a flurry rush, A for I don’t know what. All I need to remember is the location on the map for Korok Forest. Don't forget.

Every time I arrive at Korok Forest, I remember that I needed to get lost first, in the Lost Woods. Woods that are mist upon mist, density and mystery. And what is fog if not a reminder, on the part of nature (virtual or material), of the otherness of the world? "The world out there," says the fog, "outside of you... is... radically mysterious." Unreachable. The only way for you to root yourself in the present is to accept the great hissing question mark of matter. To accept that existence is a sticky texture, the kiss between the game and my life. The infinite licks between my avatar and my body, in this case my fingers: X, A, B, Z, SQUARE, TRIANGLE, CIRCLE, joystick. An intermittent, continuous arousal.

Every time I go into Korok Forest I remember the way to your orgasm. To your love. Because the path is also made with hands, and because the earth was (or is) your (my) body. I walk through it, trying to understand which trails I find. But your body is no longer here – and all I have is the density of the fog. A fog that's like that drizzle, you know? The further I go, the wetter I get. Soaked in the memory of you. And with wet hands I feel like Emperor Hadrian. Did you know that this Roman emperor lubricated the statues of his beloved Antinous to feel the marble alive, warm, to remember the love he lost? Imagine fingers massaging the stone, trying to make it yield to a whole web of inner feelings, of desires. And now he imagines me commanding the joystick, searching for the forest I long for. I knead, knead, knead, spin and spin again, and when I arrive I realize that –

Every time I go into Korok Forest I remember you’re no longer here. A game is not a world, nor fiction. A game is a mirror. I see my eyes in the distance on the mountain, and I see yours in every coded sunset. To find yourself, you need to get lost – your sword is in the Korok Forest. Everything you need. Everything you seek. Accept the awe* – accept becoming translucent, an emptied form, a movement. Mist and more mist – that's what Lost Woods is. You have to know how to navigate this foggy membrane.

*I am haunted by the idea that you were my fan and now all that remains are fanfics. My delusions of everything that could have been, as if we were characters from another reality. As if we had been part of some Heated Rivalry, and I could simply dialogue with these emptied forms of ourselves. Only the shell remains. The carapace of us remains, of each one involved in the story. And with these carapaces I assemble my puppet show. I've become a fan of the potential: that's what fanfiction is: a total abandonment to the powers of fantasy to massage reality. A deadly kiss between the past and the future.

Every time I arrive, I remember. Your hands. Mine. But I also arrive at Guilherme's work. And every time I arrive, I remember the anchors I need to bury myself in reality. Each form, a direction. As if I arrived at a Zelda campfire and reality asked me, "Do you want to sit here for a while?" And then I contemplate the tools I carry in my inventory to think about reality. I look around. It's already night. The stars promise me another life. And remind me that the path to the future is also a membrane - the sky is layers. Holes. Ozone. And God the first and the last player.

Every time I go into Korok Forest I remember that I have a soul.

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