Europa Oxalá, curated by Aimé Mpembe Enkobo, António Pinto Ribeiro and Katia Kameli, presents 71 works in different media and languages, conceived by 21 2nd and 3rd generation Afro-descendant artists. At the Main Gallery of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (until August 22), this is a manifesto-exhibition, politically engaged, with multiple agendas – above all, rethinking European identity and its memory in the post-colonial context. The choice of works also allows contesting the segregated status of “African art” and asking for more visibility for women artists and, finally, promoting the decolonisation of museological institutions and embracing multiple perspectives.

“For me this exhibition is a cry, the voice that I don’t have. At school I have to study things that hurt me, that wound me. Like the so-called glorious history of the Portuguese, but no one ever says at whose expense… Or like Fernando Pessoa’s ‘Mensagem’, and I like Fernando Pessoa a lot, but he only talks about the ‘Portuguese tears’?! I would also like to study a poem about the tears of my great-great-grandfather… The teacher of ‘x’ says that we have to stop talking about slavery and colonialism because those are things of the past. How are they things of the past? Isn’t it because of them that I had to watch a man of my colour die, choking under a policeman’s knee? Isn’t it because of them that my hair got ruined with chemicals as they found its natural style ugly and dirty? Isn’t it because of them that my mother is an immigrant and doesn’t have time to think about these things we are talking about here because, when she lays her head on her pillow, her concern is to make it to the end of the month and pay her bills? Do you know what I would like to do? I would like to study Arts, but I’m poor and a daughter of immigrants, so I don’t know what I’m going to do yet…”

The decision to include an account by Joana Simões Piedade (artistic-cultural mediator), quoting a twelfth-grade student (from a Portuguese secondary school) visiting the Europa Oxalá exhibition, is proof of the show’s success. This testifies its ability to trigger critical and fervent reflections that, ultimately, put into national public debate, in reference to intuition, conveniently silenced (or even denied) themes related to the harmful and violent consequences of colonialism, slavery and racism.

Historical phenomena with lasting discriminatory legacies in contemporary European societies are felt more intensely in countries with a colonial past and background, such as France, Portugal and Belgium, the nations from which most of the artists represented come (Aimé Mpane, Aimé Ntakiyica, Carlos Bunga, Délio Jasse, Djamel Kokene-Dorléans, Fayçal Baghriche, Francisco Vidal, John K. Cobra, Josèfa Ntjam, Katia Kameli, Malala Andrialavidrazana, Márcio Carvalho, Mohamed Bourouissa, Mónica de Miranda, Nú Barreto, Paulina Valente Pimentel, Pedro A.H. Paixão, Sabrina Belouaar, Sammy Baloji, Sandra Mujinga e Sara Sadik) and through where the exhibition travels (it has already been at the Mucem, in Marseille, and will be at the Royal Museum of Central Africa – AfricaMuseum, in Tervuren).

Another of the exhibition’s qualities, also noticeable from the student’s remarks, is to question the collective, linear and broad narratives, based on eurocentrism as a model of knowledge and hegemonic interpretation of reality. This has been prevalent since the multi-secular project of modernity (adopted by capitalism) and creates a vision of History where the Old Continent stubbornly is its sole producer (creating epistemicides). When highlighting individual experiences on the concept of post-memory – the exhibition’s conceptual axis – there are somehow traumatic experiences that remain alive in the personal and family memories of the represented artists. Although they have not experienced them directly, they have them in their bodies and spirits and carry them as critical creative energy into their works.

The exhibition layout, which includes black boxes (with videos, some related to Afrofuturism), allows the public to quietly analyse the works. Some are of more immediate and unexpected reading, others require more dedication to generate dialogues. This heterogeneity allows greater transversality between the audiences. It adds value to a show that, above all, wants to be inclusive. The exhibition also favours, being internationally pioneering in this regard, the idea that there is a group of artists of African descent that is increasingly assuming itself as a trans-territorial community, present in prestigious contemporary art scene events.

Using personal taste as my exclusive (and legitimate) yardstick, I would like to highlight two works from the exhibition. On the one hand, a monochrome drawing in coloured pencil on paper by Pedro A.H. Paixão (Angola, 1971). It is a portrait of a mestizo woman, based on a photograph of the artist’s great-grandmother. Her eyes stand out, so disturbing that the viewer’s gaze tries to evade them. We have to give in, take on and unearth revealing details: despite her apparent serenity, in one hand the woman holds a pistol over her lap; a snake hangs from her neck and, on her head, she has a poisonous flower which, more than a prop, is a device for irreversible escape – fiction and reality unite and destabilise. On the other, one of Sabrina Belouaar’s photographs (France, 1986) shows the hands of an Algerian woman stuffed with gold rings. With a documental side, the beautiful image shows a custom in the West African coast countries, with a strong Islamic influence. It is the ostracism of some women, first by their families and then by society. For reasons such as alleged infidelity, many are kicked out of their homes and disinherited. Their only valuable asset is what their bodies carry – that is, their jewellery. To survive, many of them gather in community and foster a black market for trading goods.

Europa Oxalá looks to the past to envisage a future where ethno-racial, cultural and artistic hybridity is the cornerstone of European identity and its main brand image. Europe Insha’Allah.

The exhibition Europa Oxalá is at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation until August 22.