Mariana Tilly, Basel Academy of Art and Design

Fall Semester 2021

CAPACIDADES (25 de Abril / 6 de Maio) is a PhD project combining cultural studies and artistic methods to explore the subjects of decolonisation processes and migration (PALOP, Portugal, Switzerland) as consequences of geopolitical trauma through an ecological and postcolonial perspective. As a trained artist engaging with cultural analysis, the motivation and inclinations of the project lie with decoding history, analysing media discourses, critical image theory and issues of representation, merging artistic practice and visual essayism with cultural studies' research methods. It takes on the case study of 6 de Maio, a collective self-constructed venture of African-Portuguese immigrants in Damaia/Greater Lisbon, and it aims to unravel the complex and nuanced connections between political, social and cultural policies which characterise the imperial and fascist era of Portugal (culminating with reinstated democracy’s early stages in 1975, thus beginning the decolonisation efforts) by contextualising the past 100 years of the neighbourhood’s location within a global context. The story of the 6 de Maio valley and its transformation over this period expands to the “Colonial Wars” in Africa, the simultaneous Vietnam War (first broadcasted war), Portuguese migration waves to France and Switzerland, and the effect of climatic constraints and weather control tactics in warfare, land distribution, urban development and nationalist rhetorics. The project takes the form of written and film essay, and aims to activate public archives from the Portuguese regime of Estado Novo (1933-1974) and create visual documentation of 6 de Maio and the conditions under which it came to exist. 

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