A series of 150 artworks in varied mediums from different Portuguese speaking countries, which includes certain parts of India, are being showcased in an exclusive exhibition here.
Works of artists from Portugal, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique and India comprise the travelling exhibition underway at the India International Centre here.
The series of uncanny artworks seem to tell a story. An anti-clock wise tour of the gallery indicates an evolution, a moving forward of time.
Organised by Perve Galeria with support of the Portugal Embassy, the exhibition "Lusophonies/Lusofonias" display both modern and contemporary art by different generations of the Portuguese speaking countries or Lusophones which include Portugal, Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique and certain parts of India.
"This exhibition intends to represent Lusophonie art and the way how it has evolved historically," says Carlos Cabral Nunes who has curated the exhibition
All the artworks in the exhibition have a common connection, whether experiential or through a formal aesthetic, related to African roots.
A troika of oxymoronic images, two from India and one from Africa, serves as a prologue to the collection which manifests the cross-cultural developments that followed the colonization across continents and the struggle against it.
"The origin of this collection was the need to reflect on how lusophone countries saw and see Lusophonie, a plural and dialectical vision, full of discrepancies, ambiguities and mutual contamination about culture, society, and even about a common language," says Nunes.
The show has been chronologically divided into three sections: 'Colonialism', 'Independence' and 'Miscegenation and Diaspora.'
Moving from one period to another in the anthology portrays a clear evolution from the "tendency to use art as a revolutionary discourse" in colonies to the establishment of sovereign political regimes after independence.
"In Portugal, the freedom of speech that followed several decades of repression was a symptom of the artistic development," says Nunes.
