Still Point Series
2026
Rocks, arrows
Variable dimensions
All images © Fábio Colaço
2026
Rocks, arrows
Variable dimensions
All images © Fábio Colaço
In this series of sculptures, the artist stages an apparently
impossible encounter: arrows pierce solid rock. Two opposing
conditions are forced to coexist: movement and stillness, fragility
and permanence, direction and resistance. The rock appears impenetrable: solid, ancient, seemingly immune
to change. The arrow embodies trajectory, intention and force,
following a line towards a predetermined point. Yet, impossibly,
that line continues into the stone. What should resist is penetrated;
what should be stopped passes through. Neither element emerges
unchanged.
This contradiction becomes a metaphor for the forces that shape individual and collective life. The rock can be read as a body subjected to laws, conventions, ideologies and invisible systems of power that determine how bodies should behave, where they belong and in which direction they are expected to move. The arrow becomes a line of authority (a rule, an expectation, a prescribed trajectory) that enters the body and remains embedded within it. The relationship can also be reversed. The stone may stand for the apparent permanence of established structures: political systems, social hierarchies, ideological boundaries, inherited conventions. The arrow then becomes the disruptive gesture, the seemingly minor act capable of penetrating what appeared impenetrable. Resistance is deliberately left unresolved: it is never clear which element resists and which imposes itself. Throughout the series, resistance is understood not as simple opposition but as a negotiation between forces. The stone does not move, yet it must accommodate; the arrow advances, yet its movement ends inside the body it has penetrated. Force produces transformation, but resistance also transforms force.
Titles of each sculpture such as Unwritten Law and Invisible Order evoke the rules that govern social life precisely because they have become difficult to see. Minor Act and Little Revolt consider resistance at its smallest scale: change that begins not with a monumental gesture but with a deviation, an interruption, a seemingly insignificant act. Perfect Collapse suggests that the collapse of one structure may be necessary for another to emerge. No Tomorrow, Last Hope and Not Forever introduce time as a political and existential condition, oscillating between the disappearance of the future and the refusal to accept the present as permanent. It challenges the apparent eternity of the stone: no law, ideology or social order is as immutable as it presents itself.
Rather than heroic or absolute, resistance here is continuous, physical and often precarious. To resist may simply mean to remain, to deviate, to endure pressure, or to make an opening where none seemed possible. The impossible image of an arrow passing through stone ultimately becomes an image of transformation. Bodies can be disciplined and ideas can harden, but neither is entirely fixed. Walls can be penetrated, orders questioned, structures collapsed. What appears permanent is only permanent until something passes through it.
This contradiction becomes a metaphor for the forces that shape individual and collective life. The rock can be read as a body subjected to laws, conventions, ideologies and invisible systems of power that determine how bodies should behave, where they belong and in which direction they are expected to move. The arrow becomes a line of authority (a rule, an expectation, a prescribed trajectory) that enters the body and remains embedded within it. The relationship can also be reversed. The stone may stand for the apparent permanence of established structures: political systems, social hierarchies, ideological boundaries, inherited conventions. The arrow then becomes the disruptive gesture, the seemingly minor act capable of penetrating what appeared impenetrable. Resistance is deliberately left unresolved: it is never clear which element resists and which imposes itself. Throughout the series, resistance is understood not as simple opposition but as a negotiation between forces. The stone does not move, yet it must accommodate; the arrow advances, yet its movement ends inside the body it has penetrated. Force produces transformation, but resistance also transforms force.
Titles of each sculpture such as Unwritten Law and Invisible Order evoke the rules that govern social life precisely because they have become difficult to see. Minor Act and Little Revolt consider resistance at its smallest scale: change that begins not with a monumental gesture but with a deviation, an interruption, a seemingly insignificant act. Perfect Collapse suggests that the collapse of one structure may be necessary for another to emerge. No Tomorrow, Last Hope and Not Forever introduce time as a political and existential condition, oscillating between the disappearance of the future and the refusal to accept the present as permanent. It challenges the apparent eternity of the stone: no law, ideology or social order is as immutable as it presents itself.
Rather than heroic or absolute, resistance here is continuous, physical and often precarious. To resist may simply mean to remain, to deviate, to endure pressure, or to make an opening where none seemed possible. The impossible image of an arrow passing through stone ultimately becomes an image of transformation. Bodies can be disciplined and ideas can harden, but neither is entirely fixed. Walls can be penetrated, orders questioned, structures collapsed. What appears permanent is only permanent until something passes through it.