Wrong Sky
2026
UV print on shoes
Variable dimensions
All images © Fábio Colaço
2026
UV print on shoes
Variable dimensions
All images © Fábio Colaço
Wrong Sky (2026) continues the artist’s recurring use of shoes as
both sculptural objects and conceptual devices. In this work, the
soles of a pair of shoes are UV-printed with an AI-generated image
of the sky, creating the uncanny impression of walking directly upon
clouds. A familiar and mundane gesture, walking, is transformed
into a poetic and destabilising act in which orientation, gravity,
and symbolic order appear inverted.
The work proposes a subtle yet incisive reflection on perception and truth in contemporary society. By placing the sky beneath the feet, the piece reverses one of the enduring metaphors of political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who described factual truth as “the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us.” For Arendt, factual truth constitutes the shared framework that allows collective reality to exist, a stable horizon against which political and social life can unfold. Without agreement on basic facts, the world loses coherence and reality itself begins to waver.
The piece stages the collapse of this stability. The sky, traditionally associated with transcendence, orientation, and openness, is relocated to the sole of the shoe, becoming something stepped on, worn down, and carried across unstable terrain. By using an AI-generated image, the work introduces another layer of uncertainty: the sky itself is no longer a direct representation of reality, but an artificial construction that appears plausible while having no singular real-world referent. Truth no longer appears as a fixed horizon above us, but as an inverted and fragile surface vulnerable to distortion, fabrication, and erosion. In this sense, the sculpture becomes an image of the contemporary condition, an era in which truth is increasingly replaced by competing assumptions, mediated perceptions, and speculative narratives about reality. AI becomes both medium and metaphor: a technology capable of producing convincing images of things that never existed, while simultaneously challenging our ability to distinguish representation from reality.
Through the simplicity of its gesture, the work transforms an everyday object into a philosophical proposition. Walking on clouds becomes both impossible and strangely plausible, a mirage sustained by technology, imagination, and belief. The sculpture oscillates between irony and melancholy, suggesting a world in which certainty has dissolved and even the most elementary coordinates of reality can be reversed.
The work proposes a subtle yet incisive reflection on perception and truth in contemporary society. By placing the sky beneath the feet, the piece reverses one of the enduring metaphors of political philosopher Hannah Arendt, who described factual truth as “the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us.” For Arendt, factual truth constitutes the shared framework that allows collective reality to exist, a stable horizon against which political and social life can unfold. Without agreement on basic facts, the world loses coherence and reality itself begins to waver.
The piece stages the collapse of this stability. The sky, traditionally associated with transcendence, orientation, and openness, is relocated to the sole of the shoe, becoming something stepped on, worn down, and carried across unstable terrain. By using an AI-generated image, the work introduces another layer of uncertainty: the sky itself is no longer a direct representation of reality, but an artificial construction that appears plausible while having no singular real-world referent. Truth no longer appears as a fixed horizon above us, but as an inverted and fragile surface vulnerable to distortion, fabrication, and erosion. In this sense, the sculpture becomes an image of the contemporary condition, an era in which truth is increasingly replaced by competing assumptions, mediated perceptions, and speculative narratives about reality. AI becomes both medium and metaphor: a technology capable of producing convincing images of things that never existed, while simultaneously challenging our ability to distinguish representation from reality.
Through the simplicity of its gesture, the work transforms an everyday object into a philosophical proposition. Walking on clouds becomes both impossible and strangely plausible, a mirage sustained by technology, imagination, and belief. The sculpture oscillates between irony and melancholy, suggesting a world in which certainty has dissolved and even the most elementary coordinates of reality can be reversed.