Geovana Côrtes (1996) is a visual artist and a PhD candidate, and holds a master’s degree in visual arts in the Artistic Creation Processes line (EBA-UFBA), as well as a degree in communication (UFBA). She also completed training through the International Artistic Practices Program at Uncool Artist (2020). She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including the solo show bicho metamorfoseante at A Galeria (Salvador, BA, 2024) and the group exhibitions Do write [right] to me (New York, USA, 2021) and Casa de Mulheres at Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (Salvador, BA, 2024). She has contributed to publications such as Desvio (Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 2024) and REVISTA ABOIO #1 (São Paulo, SP, 2022), and participated in collective projects and residencies including Pivô Salvador (2025), CAB (2023), and ZONA FLUXOS (Salvador, BA, 2022).

arrangements for spreading (2025) emerged from the artist’s experience during her residency at Pivô Salvador, where she explored the idea of the backyard as a porous membrane of exchange between her body and more-than-human bodies, developing through this exchange the concept of multispecies, and feeling particularly inspired by ants and the aroeira tree.

After reading The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso, Côrtes was intrigued by the dispersal strategy of Erodium cicutarium seeds, which leap from the parent plant in order to disperse, using the movement of other bodies to travel for miles and propagate. By doing that, they create new displacements and change the territories where they settle. She saw in this mechanism a metaphor for her aims as an artist: by paying attention to what exists beyond human functioning and by creating in communion with more-than-human beings, her artworks are born and become like seeds that leap from her body into the world—growing, generating new narratives, and releasing other seeds that no longer depend on her, on her body, or on her speech. They are, in themselves, the power of creation.

The sculptures in the triptych arise from this encounter with ants, the aroeira, and other beings that invent ways of living and proliferating—beings that create arrangements for spreading.