Epistemic Decolonization through the Colonial, Anti- and Post-Colonial Archive in Contemporary Art

This visual essay comprises a selection of works made by artists from several generations and geographies, who contribute to an epistemic decolonization in, and of, the present by means of archival research. With works by Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola, 1979), Filipa César (Portugal, 1975), Olavo Amado (São Tomé and Príncipe, 1979), Ângela Ferreira (Mozambique, 1958), Eurídice Kala aka Zaituna Kala (Mozambique, 1987), Délio Jasse (Angola, 1980), Daniel Barroca (Portugal, 1976), Filipe Branquinho (Mozambique, 1977), and Mónica de Miranda (Portugal/Angola, 1976), I propose a possible reading of the various ways in which contemporary artists have been working critically with colonial archives, not only public, but also private and familial, in view of a decolonizing memorialization of Portuguese colonialism and an understanding of its profound and multifarious impact in contemporary societies – notably regarding structural and institutional racism in Portugal, and enduring patterns of coloniality and neo-colonialism in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe