Colonialism in Brazil, Mozambique, Angola. The colonialism of the past that left roots to the present. Yesterday and today images on display this Wednesday the Berardo Collection in Lisbon opens. The award was renamed but everything else remains. It remains one of the most important distinctions in contemporary arts, the most important in photography, amounting to 40,000 euros. Angela Ferreira, Ayrson Heraclitus and Edson Chagas are the nominated artists.
were chosen for their work and challenged to create an artistic project for Novo Banco Photo. A Brazilian, a Portuguese and Angolan. They worked alone, without knowing what each prepared, and in the end have an exhibition that seems to have been thought of together. “It’s a very special edition, has perhaps the most continuity far this award ever had,” said the press conference Pedro Lapa, director Artistic Berardo Museum, arguing that the works of Angela Ferreira (Portugal), Ayrson Heraclitus (Brazil) and Edson Chagas (Angola) “extend and create a single exposure.” “This is very significant and important for the museum, are common problems,” continued the director while it welcomed the fact that the premium did not fall with the disappearance of Banco Espírito Santo, former promoter. “It was a difficult time but thankfully continued, this award has allowed the approach between Portuguese artists, Brazilian and African Portuguese-speaking.”
And it is this approach that stands out on display which will be in Lisbon until October. We entered the room and we are immediately confronted with the Edson Chagas photographs. Low light, dark walls and bright sand. Sand beach of Cape Island in Angola. A basketball table and nothing else. The objects have been his work focus and Novo Banco Photo Edson Chagas wanted to reflect on the way people relate to these in a public space. “This park is a new space, look there as a free space on the beach with no major specificities,” explains to journalists the Angolan artist of 38 years who participated in the pavilion of Angola in the Art Biennale in Venice in 2013, and He won the Golden Lion. “I watched the different interactions that people had here, so quickly there was someone running and gymnastics as someone else listening to music too loud or sipping a beer,” he says. Space is what everyone wants him to be even if someone has built with some other purpose. “Somehow reflects my experience in Luanda, chaotic city to grow very fast, it’s like this park was a chance to escape.”
From Luanda passed to Lisbon, or Mozambique in the 1950s Angela Ferreira did not want to leave forgotten colonial history. For many years, we focus on the subject and here wants to show how “the colonial system endures” these days. “Portugal has managed to avoid talking about decolonization” but the artist insists on wanting to tell what happened. Angela Ferreira traces the architectural relationship between the buildings of the National Museum of Ethnology and the Ministry of National Defence (former Ministry of Overseas) separated by a few kilometers in the Bethlehem area and work if they’re doing. Investigated the background work that anthropologist Jorge Dias, founder of the museum, and his wife, Margot Dias, carried out in Mozambique on the Makonde people, and realized that these were not only researchers but also political. “Jorge Dias and his wife were paid by the Ministry of Overseas, writing political reports,” says the artist, who this couple agreeing on with the system. A short distance between the buildings is within walking distance that existed between the work of anthropologists and the work of the ministry. “The political ideas traveled from one side to the other.”
To give meaning to their research, Angela Ferreira, 57, built a wooden structure above ground level, to which the public is invited to rise and to sit to watch a video of 18 minutes that retrieves images taken at the time by Margot with double audio records of the work developed.
Then we jump to Brazil and the its slave past. Ayrson Heraclitus, 46, focuses on the “shaking” african-Brazilian ritual that is almost an exorcism in which the walls of the houses that once served the slave trade are like jolts / cleaned by holy leaves. The Tower House in Bahia, Brazil, and the Maison des Esclaves on Gorée Island, are chosen by the Brazilian artist to exhibit in Portugal for the first time. “This is a testament to the cruelty that was done with the families of slaves,” says Heraclitus who wants to “shake the story,” forcing the reflection of the “holocaust that was slavery.”
The winner is announced on September 22.
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