“When I came back this time, I was nothing but loose skin. I´d left my bones and organs in the celestial roots above and my blood pumped itself alive outside my body, connecting only through a long vein to the space in my back where my shoulder blades once were. As I made my way home, I tried to keep a smile on my face, but I had no cheek bones or teeth to hold it together.”
Excerpt from wild rose
11.02.2024
About THE ARTIST
Pedro Afonso Machado (PedroAfoxso) is a portuguese multidisciplinary artist based in The Netherlands, Pedro’s work is deeply influenced by queer and anarchist theory, reimagined through the lens of grotesque imagery and the concept of the grotesque body as a shared human experience.
Since 2022, he has been creating performances on and off stage blending dance, spoken word, theater and videography. E.g. Must Sweat (2024); On a stone staircase my eyes were healed (2022).
In 2024 he completed his bachelor from the Amsterdam University of the Arts in Expanded Contemporary Dance and has since worked with Jort Faber, An Kuper, Fernando Oliveira and others.
Research
Pedro´s work and research carries out through movement and words and is based on the grotesque imagery and body as a place where all human beings reside. It plays with the border between reality and fiction, between the melancholy and boredom of daily life and the utopic dream world of passion and equality. It is on its own a satire of injustice designed to incite an inner revolution on the viewer and bring them towards compassion and gentleness.
His research plays out like a chess game where a "check-mate" effect is desired as a means to unmask social-political conflicts. He sees the queer body as a rule-breaker, the only one capable of inciting the king to step away from the status quo and move farther than one square away.
Get in touch
Questions about my work?
Interested in collaborating?
You can send me a message here!