Artistic exchange between Brazil and Angola aims to reclaim colonial ties

The 35th Biennial is the first to go to Africa as part of the travelling exhibitions programme established by the Sao Paulo show, one of the biggest art events in the southern hemisphere. 

After touring cities in Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, it is on display in Angolan capital Luanda until December 2024.

Brazil, which was a Portuguese colony from 1500 to 1825, was the first country to recognise Angola's independence from Portugal in January 1975.

And now, as Angola prepares to celebrate 50 years of independence, the Brazilian biennial wanted to focus on the cultural links between the South American powerhouse and the largest Portuguese-speaking country in Africa.

'Common history'

"Luanda in Angola was for us an obvious choice and an important one, because we have a history, a common history, which is a very complex one," curator and artist Grada Kilomba told RFI.

This history, linked to the former colonial power Portugal, where Kilomba was born, includes violence, oppression and collective trauma, she said – not only because of colonisation and exploitation but the transatlantic slave trade.

Grada Kilomba, artist, writer and co-curator of the 35th Sao Paolo Biennial. © ISPA

Reclaiming and even transcending a painful past became a major theme of the biennial, she told RFI.

Organisers chose the title "Choreographies of the impossible" because "we want to deal, not with a specific theme, but with the strategies to live within the impossibility", she said.

It was important to the team to "rethink and revise history" and to extend these questions to the African continent, where black Brazilians have their roots, says Kilomba, who is herself of West African descent.

French-Algerian artist Kader Attia explores colonial wounds, creative restoration

Beyond Western limits

The travelling exhibition features works by nine artists from four different continents, from Asia to Africa, the Americas to Europe.

"This biennial brings together a set of artistic practices and cultural and social movements that refer to modes of expression that deal with total violence, the impossibility of life in complete freedom, and the limits of the idea of justice," another of the curators, Helio Menezes, told RFI.

He was particularly interested in showcasing non-Western conceptions of art, and of the world. The idea is to "look at the diversity and look at the variety of expressions," he said. 

The curators' choices aim to "reunite different perspectives from different parts of the world", explored by underrepresented artists from Latin America to Africa and beyond.

"Bringing this group of artists for the first time to the African continent is an opportunity to spread and to show their works," Menezes said. Some of them will be in Africa for the first time.

Two-way exchange

The exhibition also features work by artists from Angola and other African countries.

Ilze Wolff, an architect and artist from South Africa, investigates the history and impact of urbanisation, as well as questions of occupation, abandonment and ruin.

One of the photographs shown in Luanda. © Sander Telo / Fundacao Bienal de Sao Paulo

A set of 20 photographs reflect on post-colonial identity in Angola, while Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti created the visual identity for the biennial.