Visions of the empire

Visions of the Empire is an exhibition of photography and about photography. One more exhibition in the programme of Padrão dos Descobrimentos (the Monument to the Discoveries in Lisbon), which is one of the cultural institutions that most questiones (itself and us) about the country's colonial past and about slavery. On the website of the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, one reads that “Photographic images were staged and commercialised with numerous goals. They changed hands, both officially and secretly, they were forgotten or destroyed. They documented individual and collective dreams and memories. They fuelled the imagination around colonial domination, helping to make it come true. They contributed to a vision of the “other” as essentially different ‒ regarding ways of life, customs and mentality ‒ and to the establishment and maintenance of laws and practices founded on political, social, economic and cultural discrimination and drawn along racial lines. Moreover, they served to denounce the iniquity and violence of colonisation, encouraging aspirations for a more humane and egalitarian future that spanned various political hues and orientations. Their uses in the past and their legacy in the present were ‒ still are ‒ vast, heterogeneous and long-lasting.”

I would like to begin by saying that I find it very significant, from a symbolic point of view, that it is in this monument, which “evokes the Portuguese overseas expansion, recalls the country’s glorious past and symbolises the enormity of the work carried out by the Infante, the driving force behind the Discoveries”, that we are invited not to revise history, but to critically revisit it (as Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio would say).

In recent years, I had the opportunity to visit Return – Traces of Memory in 2016 (I wrote about it here), Racism and Citizenship and Red Atlantic in 2017, About Africa! in 2018. What I felt with this latest exhibition, Visions of the Empire, is that, even without completely meeting my expectations, it strengthens a conscious, committed and coherent intention to deepen the debate, to go a bit further every time.

An interview in the newspaper Expresso, which I read after visiting the exhibition, raised some questions for me. Joana Pontes, one of the exhibition coordinators, “is keen to underline that 'the objective of the exhibition was not to criticise the colonialist model adopted by Portugal', not least because both [coordinators – Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and Joana Pontes] disagree with the 'polarised and moral form' how the debate has developed. What is urgent is to inform, they say. ‘This exhibition tries to show that it is possible to think beyond accusation or collaboration. There was no filter of criticism, but the intention to show the diversity of points of view of the photographs and the uses it had.”

The entire exhibition is a critical appreciation of the colonialist model adopted by Portugal. How could it not be? (I don't even question, of course, if this should be desirable…). Do the coordinators consider the result to be a “neutral” or “balanced” proposal? Some concrete examples that occurred to me when I read the interview on Expresso:

How should the visitor interpret the extensive use of quotation marks in words and expressions included in the texts? (see photos 1 and 2 below). I interpreted most of it as criticism.

How should the visitor interpret the phrase “The 'moral obligation to work', applicable only to Africans, sometimes 'under conditions analogous to slavery', predominated in political speeches, in legislative texts, in administrative practices.” (photo 1)? We can attribute the first, on the “moral obligation to work, to the colonial administration, but who is being quoted in the second (“under conditions analogous to slavery”)? It is not clear nor does it allow us to better understand which sources were consulted.

Photo 1

Photo 2

In a part of the exhibition entitled “The workshops of the soul”, we see photograph 3 (below) and we read in the caption that it is a “Student learning to be a teacher” and that it belongs to the collection “Methodist Missionaries Photographing Angola”. The image raised several questions for me, being a black student teaching a class of white children. There is no other information about it and my questions were not answered at all. Further on, in a section on state propaganda, we see another similar photograph (Photo 4), of “A coloured Portuguese teaching a white Portuguese” (caption on the photo itself). Here, the exhibition caption reads that it is a “Photo sent by Angolans to the Secretary General of the United Nations”. Therefore, here we understand that we are invited to see this photo in the context of propaganda; and we are left confused as to who, in this context, were the “Angolans” who sent it to the United Nations.

Photo 3

Photo 4

Also in this section on propaganda, and considering it is an exhibition whose coordinators say that “There was no filter of criticism, but the intention to show the diversity of points of view of the photographs and the uses it had”: how is the voice of the man who said “I lived there, it was like this, this was not propaganda at all!”, regarding the photo on the bus (Photo 5), integrated in the exhibition?

Photo 5

Given these examples (which make me question the intended lack of criticism, but also the combination of different voices and experiences in the exhibition), I must also say that I liked the fact that responsibility was taken for these texts. By this I mean texts were signed by someone (I imagine researchers connected to the exhibition?), whose name we see at the top of the panel, contrary to the common practice in museums and exhibitions of presenting opinions without saying who they belong to. Likewise, I liked the panels entitled “From my point of view” (Photo 6), which seem to bring other voices, although I kept thinking: Who are these people? What is the context from which they give us their vision? Why was their point of view included in the exhibition?

Photo 6

One last comment I would like to make has to do with several references in the labels which, if there was no translation into English, I would not know what they meant (photo 7). In an exhibition, open to the general public, prior knowledge should not be assumed.

Photo 7

In sum, I would say that I liked the exhibition, it brought me information and images that I didn't know and a critical view which allowed me to question and reflect better on what I will expect from the next exhibition of the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, considering the path it has been following. The exhibition Visions of the Empire continues until the 30th of December. It is accompanied by a programme of events and activities, in which I highlight the cinema cycle Other Empires, Other Visions, which began on October 13th and continues until November 26th.

It goes without saying how necessary and urgent this questioning, this reflection is. Or perhaps not? Looking at other initiatives by some cultural institutions and having attended several debates in recent months, we repeatedly see the delayed this debate is in Portugal. At the annual conference of Acesso Cultura | Access Culture, on October 11th, some black colleagues shared with us their impatience with the state of affairs or the exhaustion caused by it (recordings here in Portuguese). They are right, and we must take responsibility for this impatience and exhaustion. We have to do our part. In recent years I have invested a lot (time and money) in readings and debates to educate myself in relation to what was never present in my path (in school and beyond).

I'm lucky to work in this sector, where I'm exposed to different references, I can hear colleagues in the first person. But not everyone will have the time and money to do it. And for many more it is not an issue or a priority among the various issues. Formal education will be fundamental, in the long term, for the education of those who will enter primary school. But for those who are already more advanced in their school path (as it is now) and for the adults in this country, where will this self-education take place? In museums, theatres, libraries, cinemas. Through us, culture professionals; if we are part of people's lives. Our relationship with people is a whole other chapter, discussed several times on this blog.