The Mechanics of Ephemeral at Gallery Filomena Soares in Lisbon

The Mecânica do Efémero starts from the idea of art as a mechanism that allows us to travel through different temporalities, through an approach that often resorts to fantasy, but where imagination becomes an important ally of historical and socio-political questions. Although the discourses of the guest artists are diverse in their approach and in the navigation of this temporal and identity flux, there is a common denominator in their relationship with a continent where the dreams and madness of foreign ghosts rest. There is and is still urgent to create a future that continues to be sustained by innocuous promises of progress and freedom, something that is not exclusive to the African continent, also welcoming the influences of different artistic languages and references that constitute this joint work, going beyond national borders and continental platforms. Art, as a simulacrum of a possible future, reminds us of an inevitable dystopia, but perhaps this dystopia was already colonization and, the powers established after the independences, a continuation of this dystopia. Whoever looks, whoever survives these time capsules, may have to clean a very thin layer of ash to arrive at a reconstructed and darkened portrait.

Show curated by Kiluanji Kia Henda

Artists: Flávio Cardoso, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Damara Inglês, Délio Jasse, Rui Magalhães, Sofia Yala

Text by Gisela Casimiro