Vestir Memórias
Although the decolonization of Portuguese-speaking African countries began in the revolutionary period, it is far from having fully materialized, in not only political, but also economic and cultural domains. Over these years, all these years gave rise, rather, to the permanent creation of neocolonialisms, and it was the ground of attacks by markets outside their own interests, hindering their path as autonomous nations, capable of creating, according to the political program of the 3Ds, its own democracy, its own economic development. These reasoning, in a reduced form, belong to Ana Balona de Oliveira who, in her essay “Decolonizing Lusophony through the Visual Arts of Portuguese-speaking African Countries and their Diaspora”, accurately traced the conditions of vulnerability with which Portuguese-speaking countries are debating and facing each other, until they get a place in their own right, both economic and intellectual.
Little by little, with more emphasis lately, we have seen a growth in investment by Portuguese art galleries in promoting the work of artists from these countries, although, according to Oliveira, they first have to undergo some recognition in order to, effectively, find acknowledgement in Portugal later on.
It was also, through Ana Balona de Oliveira, that I arrived at a text by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and which, in order to better understand Ana Silva’s exhibition, Vestir Memórias, I now find myself trying to scrutinize, in more detail, and dedicate some of my time.
Above all, in the text “Epistemologies of the South”, by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, written in partnership with Maria Paula Meneses, I was captured by the considerations woven around the epistemological, and even ontological, problems raised by the modern western world when exercising over African countries, a domain that is often colonialist and capitalist. Now if epistemologies are conceived within the context and social relations, and if the model western imposed itself politically and militarily on non-Western peoples, instilling universal principles on their social practices, we can conclude that African peoples originally possessed diversified local forms of knowledge, which, little by little, were being eliminated by levelling and unilateralist conceptions. , coming from sources of Western thought, supposedly seen as superior, or even valid, as a single thought. According to Santos and Meneses, the dual Western intervention, political and capitalist on the one hand, and modern and Christian on the other: “was so profound that it discredited and, whenever necessary, suppressed all social practices of knowledge that contradicted the interests that she served”. Leading, according to the authors, to a true “epistemicide”, insofar as, due to the way western intervention directed its action, “a lot of social experience was wasted and the epistemological, cultural and political diversity of the world was reduced”.
The belief in science and in the western epistemological domain also led the agents of autochthonous culture, and local knowledge, to a condition of muteness, subordination and impotence, to which African artists, unfortunately, were not oblivious.
Ana Silva’s exhibition seems to illustrate this dissatisfaction. A countless number of garments, linked together, require decoding.
The first question that arises is: Where do all these pieces of clothing come from? And the dresses, covered in colourful patterns?
They are strange because initially we cannot discern their origins, or even understand which country they belong to.In an anteroom, or small initial corridor of the gallery, several drapes cover one of the walls. Hanging wires fall in the air, in a straight line, and towards the ground. They are born from the linearity of the embroidery seams, overcome by gravity. The drapes, or bare garments, are joined by seams.
In the midst of pleasant lace, embroidered with the faces of elderly women, they break out, like shadows, or faint apparitions. Other questions plague the mind: A female condition that cannot be silenced? Memories of women of yesteryear, or rather women of today? Are they silent memories, or rather the muteness of their stories that can no longer be hidden?
The threads, in a straight line, that fall to the ground, (like threads of blood?) depart from these images of mature women, and contrast, or accentuate, the irradiation, or irregularity, of the tissue fragments that are joined together.
They are no more convincing than incongruity. They make us suspect that union, apparently so disparate. Where do all these fabrics come from? Those shreds of scrawny robes? Clothes are no longer suitable for dressing, but have been transformed into two-dimensional canvases for dressing thoughts.
As if they were Dada collages, they reveal the incongruity of their connections. They clearly show how the autochthonous culture is sutured and torn apart by the intrusion of western fragments. Even if people don’t recognize them, don’t understand their codes, they invade their societies, their indigenous peoples. Thus, hundreds of clothes arrive on the African continent, and, as in a symbolic violence, the natural people are culturally colonized and reviled. Bound to create new meanings and stories to these pieces.
In the large room, after the small antechamber, we are enraptured by an astonishing composition of objects placed in a corner of the room.
A mannequin, without a head, is seated in a low chair and wears infinite necklaces, adorning his slender neck.What is declared is a feast of colour, an allegory of shapes, a treat for the eyes, with so much refinement in the patterns and voluptuousness in the details. Femininity is not covered up, on the contrary, it is celebrated.
In a coming and going of senses, or the absence of them, leads us to question, why are they allied in that way?
We ask ourselves, where do the pieces of cloth come from?, and to what extent did western knowledge have the right to “mutilate” indigenous society and culture, with the pretence of its superiority?It is at this precise moment, when I am questioning myself on the question of superiority, that the thought of Kant, in the Metaphysical Foundation of Morals, and of a phrase that can support this thought of mine: “Discernment, shrewdness of mind, ability to Judging and whatever the other talents of the spirit may be called, or even courage, decision, constancy of purpose, as qualities of temperament, are doubtless in many respects good and desirable things, but they can also become extremely bad and harmful if the will, which is to make use of these natural gifts and whose particular constitution for this reason is called character, is not good”. Or again, “The same is true of the gifts of fortune. Power, wealth, honor, even health, and all the well-being and contentment with one’s lot, under the // name of happiness, give encouragement that often, for that very reason, turns into pride, if there is not also the good will that correct its influence on the soul, together with the whole principle of action, and give it general utility.”
Ana Silva’s exhibition, Vestir Memórias, in on show at Galeria do Pátio at Casa da Cerca – Centro de Arte Contemporânea, in Almada, until 11th of September.