Ângela Ferreira was born in 1958 in Maputo, Mozambique. She concluded her Fine Art studies in South Africa, obtaining a MFA from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. She lives and works in Lisbon, teaching Fine Art at the Lisbon University, where she obtained her doctorate in 2016. Ferreira’s work develops around the ongoing impact of colonialism and post-colonialism on contemporary society, an investigation that is conducted through in-depth research and distillation of ideas into concise and resonant forms. She represented Portugal at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007.

The Associação Cultural Moinho da Juventude is a non-profit organisation located in the Cova da Moura neighbourhood. Founded by a group of local residents in 1984, Moinho da Juventude has become known for its wide range of projects in the area of training and support for local children and young people, among other initiatives. Besides the offer of community-based projects, a principal aim of the association is to help people who struggle with integration, providing services such as support for parents in the promotion of education and basic care of their children, after school programmes and other services related to professional training, social support and cultural activities.

Denise Ferreira da Silva’s academic writings and artistic practice address the ethical questions of the global present and target the metaphysical and ontoepistemological dimensions of modern thought. She is a professor and director of The Social Justice Institute (GRSJ) at the University of British Columbia. Her art-related work includes texts for publications for the Liverpool, São Paulo and Venice Biennales, and for Documenta 14, as well as collaborations with Arjuna Neuman in the films Serpent Rain (2016) and 4Waters-Deep Implicancy (2018); and events (performances, talks, and private sessions) and texts related to Poethical Readings and the Sensing Salon, with Valentina Desideri.

Djass – Associação de Afrodescendentes is a non-profit organisation established in 2016. Its main objectives are to denounce and combat all forms of racism and discrimination against people of colour and African descent in Portugal and to promote a critical and comprehensive reflection on inter-ethnic relations in Portugal in order to contribute to social transformation and the positive affirmation of people of colour and African descent as full members of Portuguese society. The association is committed to the fight to deconstruct the Eurocentric visions of History, reclaiming the contribution of Africans in the construction of knowledge, culture and history; it is committed to the organisation of initiatives for the dissemination and valorisation of black and African identities and cultures. Since its inception, Djass has always worked in articulation and partnership with other associations and activist groups at a national level.

Founded in 2016 and led by women and young people, FEMAFRO is a non-profit association with a mission to defend and promote the rights of black, African and Afro-descendant women in Portugal. FEMAFRO seeks the elimination of all forms of ethnic-racial and gender discrimination, based on the ethical principles of equality, social and industrial justice and the promotion of quality of life and respect for human rights. As an autonomous and independent organisation, it brings together women from all walks of life in the areas of education, culture, health, promotion and the defence of human rights.

A multidisciplinary artist and writer, Grada Kilomba (Lisbon, 1968) lives and works in Berlin, where she has developed a body of work that combines literature, theatre, music, performance and installation. Colonisation and its legacy – memory, trauma, race and gender –, decolonisation and African diaspora are central themes in her work, which critically analyses systems of knowledge production through the formulation of three rudimentary questions: ‘Who can speak?’, ‘What can we speak about?’ and ‘What happens when we speak?’

The INSTITUTO DA MULHER NEGRA EM PORTUGAL – INMUNE is an intersectional and anti-racist feminist entity constituted by women, under private law, non-profit, solidary, nonpartisan, but not apolitical, that combats the silencing of black, African and Afro-descendant women in History and in present time. It promotes the empowerment and the social and political participation of women, an equality of rights, parity and social justice. Through its reflections and activities, it provides an environment of affirmation and valorisation of black and African heritage in Portugal.

Irineu Destourelles currently exhibits his latest work, entitled Subtitulizar/Subtitling, in the Modern Collection’s Project Space (Calouste Gulbenkian Museum). His work has been exhibited at Casa África (Las Palmas), Videobrasil (Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo), Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice), Transmission (Glasgow), Mama Showroom (Roterdão) and screened at ICA (London), Transmediale (Berlin), Hangar Bicocca (Milan) and Espaço Transversal of ArtRio 2017 among others. He currently lives and works between Edinburgh and London. He studied at the Willem de Kooning Akademie (Rotterdam) and at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design (London).

Laura Hampden acts as a development lead on the Museum Detox Executive Committee. She is an archaeologist by training, currently working within the development-led archaeology Greater London’s Archaeological Advisory Service. As chair of Historic England’s Racial Equality Network, and through her work with Museum Detox, Laura is currently advocating for organisations in the heritage sector to invest in the development of staff equality networks. Through these networks we can develop a representative and intersectional approach to equality, diversity and inclusion within the heritage and cultural sector.

Marta Lança is a Phd student on Artistic Studies at FCSH – University Nova de Lisboa, working around the post-colonial debate in the arts field. Lança created V-Ludo and Dá Fala cultural magazines (in Cape Verde) and, since 2010, is the editor of BUALA, a portal of reflection on matters related to the global South. In Luanda, between 2005 and 2008, she taught at Agostinho Neto University and collaborated with Luanda’s 1st Triennial  and with DOCKANEMA, Maputo’s international film festival (2009).  She organised the programme Vozes do Sul for the Festival do Silêncio (2017); numerous conferences for the project NAU! (Porto, 2018); with Raquel Lima, the cycle ‘Para nós, por nós’, African and African-Diasporic culture in debate (2018), among others. She translated two books by Achille Mbembe.

With a post-graduate degree in Performance and a degree in Anthropology, Melissa Rodrigues completed the Intensive Accompanied Training in Performing Arts course at c.e.m. – centro em movimento. She has worked in community arts and arts education projects through associations such as MOVEA and in public schools in the municipality of Amadora. Rodrigues currently lives in Porto and works as an educator in the Educational Service of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art and in A Oficina, an education and cultural mediation service in Guimarães. She was involved in the foundation of the pedagogical project SPACE SP620 – Salut Au Monde! A performer, art educator and member of the Anti-Racist Centre of Porto, in June 2019 she joined the team of the cultural association RAMPA Porto, Associação Cultural.

raquellima (1983) is a Lisbon based poet from both banks of the Tagus river and the Atlantic Ocean, an Angolan mother, a Santomean father, a Senegalese paternal grandmother and a Brazilian maternal great-grandmother. A poet, performer and art educator, raquellima presented her work in literature, oral narration, poetry slam, spokenword, performance and music events, namely FLIP – Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty, FLUP Rio – Festival Literário das Periferias, FOLIO – Festival Literário Internacional de Óbidos, among others. The transdisciplinarity with which she approaches art, memory and society, attentive to social inequalities and allied to a desire to find and understand her roots, led her to return to the academy, where she develops her research focused on orature and slavery in São Tomé and Prince at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra.

A Platform for the Development of the African Woman, Padema is a non-profit association that defends the cultural and identity values of the African woman, namely from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Vânia Gala is a choreographer and researcher based in London. She holds a BA in Dance from EDDC (European Dance Development Center, Arnhem) and Master of Arts in Choreography with Distinction (Trinity Laban). She is a PhD candidate at Kingston University and a PASS studentship awardee. Gala’s choreographies and ‘conversational performances’ explore the critical potential of disappearance, (non)performance, opacity and withdrawal in choreography in the present time. Her choreographic work has been performed in Angola, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Ireland, UK, Russian Federation and Austria.