Faint Light of the World with Contradictions by Irineu Destourelles
Glasgow International
Co-curated by Natalia Palombo and Outer Spaces, Faint Light of the World with Contradictions by Irineu Destourelles will be presented at Pentagon Centre as part of Glasgow International between 5-21 June 2026.
In a newly commissioned installation, Glasgow-based artist Irineu Destourelles explores how conflicting historical narratives are embodied within postcolonial, multilingual, and diasporic identities. Drawing on Irineu’s experience of Creoleness, migration, and diaspora, the work interprets the tensions between colonialist and anti-colonial ideologies in a sensory, spatial encounter.
Titled Faint Light of the World with Contradictions, 2026, the installation combines a multi-channel sound composition with monochromatic projections. Film stock sound effects intertwine with fragments of colonialist and anti-colonialist films from African and Western traditions, exploring how ideology is carried not only through narrative but through shared cinematic language.
Rather than offering resolution, the work sustains contradiction, inviting audiences to inhabit a space of uneasy familiarity where complicity and resistance coexist. Through sound and light, the installation probes contemporary identity as a layered and unresolved historical condition, constricted by colonialist narratives that continue to resonate in the present.
www.glasgowinternational.org/programme/projects/faint-light-of-the-world-with-contradictions
Irineu Destourelles
Irineu Destourelles works with moving image, text, drawing, and performance to explore the complexities of internal multiplicity. Rooted in his Creole background, his practice reflects the experience of being between languages, places, and histories. His work examines how identity is shaped by translation, memory, and the internalisation of colonial narratives, questioning how otherness continues to be constructed in contemporary life.
Destourelles trained in Fine Art at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and Central Saint Martins in London, and holds a PhD in Film Studies from University College London. His solo exhibitions include Subtitulizar / Subtitling at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon), The Beat That Makes You Dirty at CAPC (Coimbra), and Tainted Verbal at Transmission (Glasgow). His work has also been shown at venues such as the Art Institute of Chicago, CNAD (Cape Verde), MAMA Showroom (Rotterdam), and Videobrasil (São Paulo). Destourelles was born in Cape Verde and lives and works in Glasgow.
Outer Spaces
Outer Spaces was established in 2021, and presents an annual programme of critically-engaged, contemporary visual art developed within their studio network of over 1000 artists across Scotland. This programme is presented in tandem with the provision of free-to-access, meanwhile studio spaces in vacant commercial properties.
Spanning exhibitions, studio-residencies, commissions and events, through their programme they work with artists, curators and partners. Their projects provide opportunities for artists at all career-stages, including new graduates, mid-career artists, and those returning to practice. Commissioning and supporting artists to take risks as they develop new work is integral to their programme.
