Jota Mombaça: stuck in movement (in the tide)

RAM will present works by Natal- and Almada-based Brazilian artist Jota Mombaça. Titled stuck in movement (in the tide), the exhibition is developed from Mombaça’s 2023 text of the same title and unfolds as a raw, fragmented opera that traces a transition from human-centered consciousness toward entangled geo-emotional sensibilities guided by planetary movement. Set in the aftermath of catastrophe, the work follows a cast of characters centered around She (the planet’s foreigner)—a geological, sonic figure—alongside the Choir, an assembly of grievers, and Wind, an elemental carrier of sound and matter. Together, these entities form a relational ecology in which grief, belonging, and un-belonging are negotiated beyond the human paradigm.

Living and working between Portugal and Brazil, Mombaça moves across sculpture, sound, installation, performance, poetry, and critical writing. Across these forms, words operate not only as language, but as force—resonating through cacophony, polyphony, and low frequencies to unsettle anthropocentric ways of sensing and knowing the world. This exhibition brings together an immersive sculptural opera with notes, scores, and studies. Drawing on vernacular building techniques from north and north-eastern Brazil, it gestures toward forms of dwelling and relationality historically shaped by racialized and subjugated communities. In doing so, stuck in movement (in the tide) proposes an ethics of co-existence grounded in planetary rhythms, spiritual attunement, and anti-colonial refusal—inviting viewers to listen, linger, and unlearn the limits of the human.

stuck in movement (in the tide) is one of four chapters of a non-chronological opera series produced in conversation between the artist and Rockbund Art Museum, Kunsthalle Bern, Sonsbeek 2026, and Inhotim. At the Rockbund Art Museum, Jota Mombaça: stuck in movement (in the tide) is curated by X Zhu-Nowell, Executive Director and Chief Curator, with the support of Karen Wang, Assistant Curator and Researcher.