For Tantas Estórias—Portuguese for “so many stories”—Gomes has stitched a cascade of repurposed fabrics—worn denim, frayed lace, floral cottons—into a sprawling, quilt-like form that drapes, knots, and billows as if animated by unseen breaths. The work’s title is literal and metaphorical: each textile fragment carries traces of its past life (a dress, a curtain, a child’s blanket), while Gomes’s meticulous moorings bind them into a new and collective narrative.  

This work embodies Gomes’s belief that “materials hold histories.” The fabrics, often sourced from thrift markets or donated by the community, are transformed through a labor-intensive process that echoes the Afro-Brazilian tradition of costura sagrada (sacred sewing), in which cloth acts as a conduit for spiritual and social repair. The work’s scale envelops viewers, inviting them to navigate its folds like pages of an open book. 

Gomes’s technique is imperfect: loose threads dangle, edges fray, and layers overlap unevenly. These “flaws” honor the resilience of marginalized stories, particularly those of Black Brazilian women, whose domestic labor (sewing, mending) is elevated to art. Delicate lace contrasts with coarser materials, mirroring the tension between fragility and endurance central to Gomes’s practice.