Irineu Destourelles: Glasgow International

Faint Light of the World with Contradictions

As part of Glasgow International from 5 - 20 June 2026, Outer Spaces presents 'Faint Light of the World with Contradictions', a solo exhibition from artist Irineu Destourelles co-curated with Natalia Palombo.

The exhibition explores how ambivalent historical narratives tied to one’s culture and language can co-exist within a single body and identity. Drawing on the artist’s experience as a multilingual, diasporic Creole individual, the work asks: how can one live with, and speak from, the tension between complicity and resistance? The artists' new work translates this tension into an immersive sculptural installation using sound, light, and spatial transformation.

The installation combines a multi-channel sound composition with evolving monochromatic projections across four walls. 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 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, continuing to resonate into the present. 

Catharsis from the internalization of negative representations of identity, and the exploration of being between languages and places, lie at the core of Irineu Destourelles’s artistic practice. Working across media—namely moving image, text, and drawing—Destourelles interweaves autobiographical and Lusophone historical references to critique what he understands as a pervasive colonizing drive within contemporary society, one that unfolds in the ways otherness continues to be constructed.

Irineu 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.

Content Warning

This work contains moderate light transitions and fluctuating sound levels. Audio elements include banging, ringing, repetitive high-pitched sounds, jeering, and references to gunfire, alongside more melodic passages. As the work references colonialist historic film, the work includes sonic references to war and violence which audiences may find distressing.

Accessibility Information

The exhibition is on display in the Glasgow Room at The Mitchell Library. The entrance closest to the Glasgow Room is via North Street. This entrance has stepped access.

The accessible, step-free entrance is located on Granville Street, with lift access to the Glasgow Room. Please note, the accessible route to the Glasgow Room includes two set of doors without push pads; please ask a member of library staff for assistance.

Accessible toilets are available.

The AccessAble guide can be found here.

The Mitchell Library Autism Friendly User Guide is available here.