BUALA | African Contemporary Culture

From resistance and fantasy, interview with Luísa Queirós and Shipwrecks and Abandoned Boats

martalanca — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:54:16 +0000

Marta Lança

Stories told by women from Santo Antão about women-cats-witches and midwives of mermaids that go to the bottom of the sea, to the palace of the “enchanting” to provide their services by receiving three stones that will turn into gold. I really like this universe, and I take the opportunity to create characters for my art. Today, I work on a series based on the abandoned boats that existed in Galé (Cova da Inglesa) and the shipwrecked boats in the seas of Cape Verde. I believe that each artist should look within themselves for authenticity and get “contaminated” with the atmosphere around them: so they will reach a universal projection.

Penha de França, Bairro das Novas Nações, Olivais: Colonial toponyms in Lisbon

martalanca — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:39:57 +0000

João Pedro George

In Lisbon, we can identify around 250 streets that, in one way or another, have colonial associations. The names given to these streets not only reflect the city’s changes but also constitute a linguistic, cultural, and political legacy of European expansion and, in particular, of Portuguese colonialism. This connection between Lisbon’s toponymy and the legitimization of the state, whose aim was to materialize and root a certain historical memory in the population (by celebrating it), is in many ways linked to the evolution of the country’s political events.

Armas sine qua non parte 2. A Guiné-Bissau não é caso perdido

martalanca — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:23:11 +0000

Marinho de Pina

Se na primeira parte vimos como o Estado é, na sua origem, uma máfia bem-sucedida, que monopolizou a violência, então a crise guineense pode ser lida como uma luta pelo controle desse monopólio num contexto onde as instituições económicas e burocráticas são demasiado frágeis para se autonomizarem como fonte primária de poder.

The importance and purpose of memory and legacy, within the poems of Conceição Lima.

martalanca — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:13:59 +0000

Sophia Hinchey

Conceição Lima explores the challenges of being part of a nation with a history of conflict and slavery, showing readers her resentment towards the collective memory of colonial power, whilst also exhibiting hope for a legacy and future that celebrates the culture that has stemmed from this. Lima shows that only through societal remembering and global recognition can colonial memory be untangled from the legacy of São Tomé e Príncipe.

Why did we take so long to hear the Voices of the Afro-Diaspora?

martalanca — Fri, 29 May 2026 21:03:03 +0000

Marta Lança

On the social level, effective political accountability is equally indispensable in the creation of public policies to promote culture and the arts that combat exclusion and segregation, with structural effects on the lives of racialized populations, and not merely symbolic programs that are photogenic enough for reports. In this debate, we proposed to better understand some aspects of Afro-diasporic production in the fields of literature, film, and music, with special attention to women’s perspectives. Given the lack of historical documentation, it is often necessary to work with absences. As a research approach, the interrogative formulation—which acknowledges gaps that cannot always be filled — allows us to keep asking: what did they say? What did they do? What do we still not know? And perhaps also the central question: why did it take us so long to listen?

In the unit's mouth

martalanca — Fri, 29 May 2026 18:33:09 +0000

Apolo de Carvalho

This is not merely a “politics of the belly,” but rather a matter of bringing the belly to the center of politics and, consequently, abandoning the condescending view we hold of the people. Changing our perspective on food, ingredients, and gastronomy — these “unidentified political objects” — and seeking our history through them would greatly assist us in this process of liberation and unity.

Between journalism and public love: telling the collective in times of crises

martalanca — Thu, 28 May 2026 16:19:17 +0000

Sofia José Santos

Without journalism, how would we all know what is happening in Gaza? It is true that we also learn about it through social media platforms like Telegram or Instagram, but the information often reaches us through the work of journalists, including Palestinian journalists. How would we access so many stories about mental health? And how would we connect them as a significant political phenomenon? How would we learn about the cases of femicide plaguing societies? How would we know what happened in the Zambujal neighborhood? Specifically, how would we contextualize the different narratives and information? Without journalism, there would be only images and narratives shared online, without context, from partial viewpoints that are never confronted.

Explain again what it means to be Portuguese? Dino D' Santiago's opera

martalanca — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:51:44 +0000

Marta Lança

Adilson is the story of a rootless Creole. A childhood friend of Dino’s, the dancer Adilson Correia Duarte, known as Bonny and in the neighborhood as Dafos, arrived in Quarteira at eleven months old but remains a stranger in the country where he learned to walk and from which he has left only once. Adilson has never tasted the pitanga of Angola, never set foot in Cape Verde, and belongs to all three places at once without any formal ties to any of them. Angola, Cape Verde, and Quarteira are, thus, a triple belonging without recognition. Like so many other children of immigrants, he lives in this paradox: “I’ve never been there, I’ve always been here, where I’m a stranger.”

What nuances shape interracial relationships?

martalanca — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:11:09 +0000

Leopoldina Fekayamãle

The evils of these processes are vast, and it is important to remember them: the displacement and death of thousands of people; brutal physical and psychological violence; continuous humiliation; the systematic rape of black women, which also led to racial mixing; the mandatory assimilation into what was considered “superior culture”; internal divisions; attempts to erase and ban the expression of African languages and cultures; economic and epistemological violence; racial hierarchies. This was the case in Angola and other colonized regions. I was born and raised in a country where the marks of the colonial regime endure and its vestiges remain alive.

Algorithmic Capitalism: war, chaos, and knots

martalanca — Thu, 21 May 2026 09:32:45 +0000

Stefano Rota

Algorithmic capitalism proposes an operating scheme that is increasingly defined by circular lines that join the two terms, producing scenarios that do not seem exaggerated to define as apocalyptic. The development of AI strengthens that plot, which becomes increasingly evident through stated strategies and actions taken, where nothing must be disguised. Everything finds an explanation in scientific – or pseudoscientific – statements that bring together absolute confidence in technology, religious beliefs, differences between human beings based on the intelligence quotient.