De-constructing Colonial Memories

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De-constructing Colonial Memories investigates the layered processes through which Portuguese colonialism has been recorded, celebrated, and mythologised. Across the works, archival documents, architectural monuments, and mythological figures are brought into tension, revealing the ways in which history is selectively remembered, national identity constructed, and colonial violence obscured. From the Torre de Belém and the caravela to the pelourinho and triumphal arches, these symbols of civic pride and imperial ambition are interrogated not as neutral relics but as carriers of power, violence, and ideological narratives. By juxtaposing historical records with mythological and ritual imagery, the works highlight how official narratives of discovery, heroism, and civilization have been mobilised to naturalise exploitation and erase the lived realities of colonised peoples.

Central to this project is the exploration of symbolic violence - the mechanisms through which power legitimises itself through cultural, institutional, and aesthetic forms. Collaged documents, crumpled paper, and monochrome palettes evoke both the physical and psychological traces of colonialism, while figures drawn from Lusitanian mythology disrupt linear notions of heroism or national pride. Each work engages with erasure, selective memory, and the myths that sustain unequal power relations, prompting reflection on the silences, absences, and asymmetries that continue to shape historical consciousness. By confronting viewers with the seductive surfaces of monuments, archives, and paintings, the portfolio asks us to reconsider how history is seen, remembered, and represented, and whose voices have been excluded in the process.

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