The resonances and the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism in contemporary societies have been at the heart of Angela Ferreira work (Maputo, 1958). The exhibition The Tendency to Forget , reflected in the Berardo Collection Museum until 11 October, returns to this world and earned him the New Bank Photo 2015 the main prize of contemporary art in Portugal (with a value pecuniary 40 thousand euros), which distinguishes since 2007 artists from Portuguese, Brazilian or African countries where Portuguese is the official language.
For the Berardo Museum, the artist has designed an evocative sculpture of the building where worked the ministry of Ultramar (now Ministry of Defense), through which one can view videos captured by the couple George and Margot Dias, anthropologists, whose work on the Makonde people of Mozambique brought them international recognition in the 1960s and 1970s
On the one hand this installation questions the symbolism and the monumentality of a structure that represented the Portuguese dominion over the former colonies, on the other questions the scientific and academic positioning of these two researchers. For curator Elvira Dyangani Ose, The Tendency to Forget “deals actively with an episode of Portuguese colonial history” and “reveals not only the importance of the achievements in the early days call New Anthropology, but also highlights the hidden political agenda behind the couple’s investigations Days and its alliances with the Salazar regime “(Jorge Dias studied folklore and ethnology in Nazi Germany). Next to the replica of the building of the Avenida da Madeira (Lisbon), former Ministry of photographs of Ultramar and Ethnography Museum arise side by side in what can be understood as a provocation or an invitation to reflect on the proximity (are separated across the road) of two buildings that are both antagonistic and complementary.
Speaking to PUBLIC, shortly after the award, the artist said about the colonial legacy there still “deep things unresolved,” but acknowledges that Portugal begins to open the door to this discussion, particularly in the field of contemporary art. “You have to question the legacy of a deeply, make connections that is not merely to say that it is the fault of this or that. We have to try to understand the complexity of events to move towards a time when we can overcome that past.”
In the essay signing in the catalog of this year’s prize, Ose recalls a phrase from Angela Ferreira that can serve as a reference for much of his artistic career: “Buildings can be read as political texts, and is That’s what I try to do. “From this position, the artist, who graduated in sculpture in South Africa,” goes beyond the surface of each structure analyzed by exploring and revealing the subtleties of the various historical episodes that have left their mark on these buildings . “
For Angela Ferreira, there are still some fear of questioning the colonial legacy and post-colonial because it is” a universe that hurts. ” “Some courage is necessary, because it produces some emotions and I’m not just talking about the colonial question, the very process of decolonization was also not managed in terms of memory. The file of this process is to open. There are wounds that are unresolved (. . ..) often avoid talking about certain subjects because they are uncomfortable, and I sometimes can not resist to insist a bit “
On the” tendency to forget. “” I am that annoying person who keeps insist that these issues are not yet resolved. This work is a continuation of another who did in 1997 and it was called Amnesia , whose subject was the same. (…) But the comfort of oblivion the vezess prevents us to evolve philosophically, conceptually and politically. “
In addition to Angela Ferreira, they were nominated for the prize Bank New Photo 2015 Brazilian Ayrson Heraclitus and the Angolan Edson Chagas. In January, the jury chose Angela Ferreira appointed by the exhibition Indépendance Cha Cha , presented in 2014 in Cité Lumiar gallery in Lisbon. The exhibition Luanda, Encyclopedic City , which represented Angola at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013), which won the Golden Lion for best national participation, and the exhibition gallery in Belfast Exposed Photography (2014), won the Edson Chagas appointment. Throughout 2014, the Brazilian Ayrson Heraclitus participated in several exhibitions, including the jury highlights Internal Secrets (1999-2009), From Valongo to Favela (Art Museum Rio, Rio de Janeiro) or Multiple II in Crossbred Stories (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paulo).
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