Quoting a verse by Fernando Pessoa (in the poem Montes, e a paz que há neles, pois são longe), the title of this season allows us to emphasise the simplicity of a purpose that is, after all, so difficult to maintain. The value of peace, which we considered a lasting achievement of the so-called civilised world, cyclically becomes a mirage.  

In these three films from CAM’s collection contexts and evocations of war, power and colonisation are approached in very diverse ways, from the point of view of the cultural and media narratives built upon them. 

In Conakry (2013), Filipa César travels through time, space and the media to revisit the sequence of an existing film at the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual of Guinea-Bissau (INCA), which documents an exhibition curated by Amílcar Cabral in 1972 at the People’s Palace in Conakry.

In its original version, Conakry is a 16mm film with a single shot, which starts from the Luta ca caba inda project and revisits the political panorama of Guinea-Bissau from it; it appropriates fictional media reports, or subjective readings of images, and questions their role in the post-African liberation times. The artist invited Portuguese writer Grada Kilomba and American activist Diana McCarty to reflect on these images and their history, highlighting how access to almost forgotten footage can be a tool for memory recovery.

CAM IN MOTION

CAM in Motion is an ‘outdoor’ programme that brings together a series of site-specific interventions by artists and exhibitions with works from the Collection in different spaces in the city of Lisbon and its surroundings. More info