Abertura: I Returned and Saw the Doors and Beyond

Sakhile&Me is pleased to present Ana Paula dos Santos’ solo exhibition Abertura: I Returned and Saw the Doors and Beyond, opening on Friday, 5 September 2025. The exhibition opens during The Frankfurt Gallery Weekend and forms a pivotal bridge with the first body of work the artist showed at Sakhile&Me in 2020.

Abertura, translating to "opening" or "openness" in Portuguese, references the visual and metaphorical portal-like openings and punctured veils the artist forms by manipulating photo film with soap and citrus juice, a process resulting in unpredictable translucent purple and blue patterns formed by the fluids’ chemical reaction on the developing film. Their effect results in a series of surreal photographs and cinematic scenes of people, gatherings, buildings, and the coastal landscapes taken during Dos Santos' first visit to Ghana in 2022. The artist also leaves the original film perforations (openings along the edges), giving the images the appearance of photographs still in the process of development. Abertura: I Returned and Saw the Doors and Beyond invites us to encounter, through the artist’s lens, the feeling of seeing a place that has perhaps only existed in our imagination and to experience it in real time and for first time. The works are installed together as a large installation suspended from the ceilings and walls like film in a dark room, with one large tarp forming a backdrop to create multiple entry points and perspectives to view each work.

The series holds titles like "I Think I Know You From Somewhere", "I Think I Know You from Somewhere" and "So That This Never Happens Again", relaying the interwoven surreal and intimate experiences that Dos Santos had meeting people and witnessing places during her visit to Ghana. Some people looked familiar to her and the landscapes appeared similar to those she grew up with in Santos, her coastal hometown in Brazil. Dos Santos’ lens captures tender moments like the scene of a young child wandering along the tall grass by the water in "Boy from Lake II" and harsh reminders of a foregone time that has left scars on people, the land and the literal walls of buildings still standing today as in the work, "So That This Never Happens Again".

The latter work and several others depict different perspectives of the interiors and exterior of Elmina Castle. In the image, the viewer can see a silhouetted curved opening leading into a dark cell in the the castle, also known as Castelo da Mina, which is located in Elmina, Ghana and was built by the Portuguese in 1482. Elmina Castle was occupied by the Portuguese before being taken over by the Dutch in 1637 and then by the British and it was used as a passageway to hold and transport enslaved Africans to different places including the Americas. Under the auspices of the Dutch West Indies Company an estimated 30,000 slaves passed through Elmina Castle each year until 1814. The second part of the exhibition title "I Returned and Saw the Doors and Beyond" refers to the Door of No Return, a narrow doorway where enslaved Africans were led through onto ships, never to return.

Born and raised in Brazil, Dos Santos recalls people telling her to "return to Africa" and though she does not know with certainty that her ancestry traces back to Ghana, there is a high probability that her ancestors would have passed through Elmina Castle in Ghana or a similar port off the West African coast. Moving beyond the "doors of no return", Dos Santos made new memories in Ghana and the photographs on view are of her impressions: The feeling of making new friends in a place she once held in her mind, walking together with them through the streets and the forest, learning about weaving traditions still practiced today, walking through bustling markets, and walking through the castle-turned-tourist-attraction. Together, they brew up a surreal familiarity. Dos Santos portrays and carries through this feeling in each photograph and through her preparation of the film with soap and citrus juice before her trip, already anticipating the moments and memories she would make and gather through the lens.

Abertura: I Returned and Saw the Doors and Beyond becomes a kind of introduction and pondering gesture, an expectant window peering into the process of becoming. From the deliberate manipulation with fluids, unpredictable reaction of the film, and the decision to leave the original perforated edges, developing a visual language with the photographic process itself, Abertura: I Returned and Saw the Doors and Beyond evolves into a self-determined and self-articulated curiosity that is at once personal and historically charged.

Ana Paula dos Santos is a visual artist whose work extends to include photography, site specific installation and video. Her practice is shaped by her coming of age in Brazil as well as her study of human geography and "decolonial studies," using the camera and history of photography to explore the way the printed image has historically been used to frame our understanding of history and to investigate ways of using experimental techniques to reformulate or reconstruct the image. The artist earned her Master of Arts in Human Geography with a focus in Decolonial Debates in Art from the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University (Frankfurt) and is currently completing her studies at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Dos Santos lives and works in Frankfurt.