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Claudio Pestana
Mundus Transfiguratus: Towards a Queer Ecological Mythology
The Writers’ Room
2 – 28 February 2026
EVENT: 7 February 2026, 5 - 8PM
During their residency at the Writers’ Room, Pestana presents Mundus Transfiguratus, an interdisciplinary project informed by ecology, mythology, and queer phenomenology. In this body of work, the artist deconstructs ancient myths and brings them to life in a contemporary context as a counter-narrative, reinterpreted from a queer perspective. In Mundus Transfiguratus, Pestana creates and documents queer journeys that materialise as immersive installations, performative events, and storytelling. Through these gestures, the project unfolds as an experimental, participatory psychodrama, interweaving fiction and reality, legend and biography. Mundus Transfiguratus explores themes of conflict, displacement, and trauma, while also celebrating hope, love, and the resilience of those who overcome adversity.
The Queerdom of Brightwyna
First, one is invited into the House of Brightwyna, a human-deer psychopomp and heir to the sacred bloodline of Cernunnos. As part of our stay with Brightwyna, we encounter their landscape divinations. Brightwyna is a gifted diviner, known for their haunting practice of dendromancy, in which they enter a trance state, drawing forth visions from the land itself. Using bark, leaves, petals, lichen, and sap, they scatter organic matter onto raw canvas. The materials fall, guided by the deep will of nature, forming patterns that answer the questions Brightwyna dares to ask.These paintings, ephemeral yet charged with insight, offer glimpses of futures both near and far, joyous and grim. We also marvel at Brightwyna’s collection of votive warriors. Over the course of many centuries, Brightwyna has built an eclectic collection of votive statues, each imbued with stories, prayers, and forgotten intentions. Some are gifts from the souls they have shepherded into the next world; others were found buried in sunken gardens or beneath the roots of trees. As we journey through the Queerdom of Brightwyna, we also encounter Thorne, a human-flora diviner and guardian of the ancient Lusitanian Deck of divination cards, and, if we are lucky, we may be honoured with a divinatory reading.
About the artist
Claudio Pestana is a Portuguese-British interdisciplinary artist who creates site-responsive performances and immersive installations that engage with a wide range of media, including ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, sound, text, and video. Through these diverse forms, Pestana examines the politics of memory, interrogating how certain stories are preserved and celebrated while others are neglected and forgotten. A core focus of the artist’spractice is the deconstruction of heteronormative and binary gender frameworks, queering not only history but also physical spaces and places.