BIOGRAPHY
Ângela Ferreira was born in Maputo, Mozambique, 1958. Lives in Lisbon
2008 Hard Rain Show, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon;
Front of House, Parasol Unit – Foundation For Contemporary Art, London
2007 52. Biennale di Venezia;
AfterLife, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town;
An Atlas of Events, Fundação Gulbenkian, Lisbon
2006 Ângela Remix, La Chocolataria, Santiago de Compostela, Spain ;
Re(volver), Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon
Selected Bibliography FERREIRA, Ângela,
Em Sítio Algum/ No Place at All, Lisboa, Museu do Chiado – MNAC/ IPM, 2003;
Maison Tropicale, 52. Biennale di Venezia; PERRYER, Sophie,
10 Years 100 Artists – Art in a Democratic South Africa, Cape Town, Bell-Roberts Publishing, Struik, 2005.
INTERVIEW
Regina Melim: Can we start by talking about your project for the 28th Bienal de São Paulo?
Ângela Ferreira: My work for the 28th Bienal is part of the long project
For Mozambique, whose full title is
For Mozambique (Model #3 for Propaganda Stand, Screen and Loudspeaker Platform Celebrating a Post-Independence Utopia), and is part of an experimental, investigative project that is dedicated to Mozambique and its post-independence period. It is the third version of a single idea that keeps developing in time and space. This idea of developing different versions based on an investigation is a new experience in the context of my artistic practice. Because my work is investigative, and sometimes the investigation is rich and offers several possible paths for working, I’ve felt dissatisfied with the idea of the unicity of the resulting product for a long time. Having various installation experiments branch out from the same point of departure and complete one another has been an interesting experiment. Like I said before, this is the third version of the project. The first was part of the exhibition entitled
Hard Rain Show at the Museu Berardo, in Lisbon, and the second was at the Front of House exhibition at the Parasol Unit, in London. I don’t see them as a series, but a single project, hence the titles
model #1, #2 and #3, which expresses the idea of experiments based on communicational functionalities.
For Mozambique focuses on two historical moments of great social and political optimism: the first is the period following the Russian Revolution in the 1920s, which can be seen in the physical structure of the work; and the second is the atmosphere of euphoria surrounding Mozambique’s independence in the mid- 1970s, which can be felt in the two films that are a part of the project.
The (wooden) structure / sculpture of this and all the other versions is based on 1922 designs for “agitprop” stands by Latvian-Russian artist Gustav Klucis, who was an important exponent of Russian constructivism in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The stands were multifunctional structures used a lot by the Russian Communist Party in the 1920s to influence and mobilize public opinion during the volatile period following the Russian Revolution. These temporary stands could be packed up and moved around and were often set up in the streets during important events, offering various functions, including book displays, loudspeakers and platforms for speakers, places for posters, and screens where films could be projected. I use my “agitprop” structures / sculptures to present two films that capture the celebratory spirit of post-independence Mozambique (1975–77). The short film
Makwayela, directed by French ethnographer and filmmaker Jean Rouch and Jacques d’ Arthuys, shows Mozambican factory workers expressing and articulating their independence from colonial power through song and dance; on the other hand, the lyrics of the Bob Dylan song describe a hedonistic atmosphere in Mozambique, where he sees himself “among the people living free.”
The structure / sculpture becomes a manifestation of the atmosphere of utopian celebration in post-independence Mozambique, as well as a monument to the feelings of hope for the future of the country at that time, before the changes and slips that led the country into the fundamental Marxism and civil war that occupied Mozambique in the following two decades. There is also a parallel between the two historical moments: utopian euphoria had inspired Klucis during the state of political and artistic grace that was a part of Russian constructivism and that ended up an authoritarian, fundamentalist Marxist system.
I was interested in taking another look at this hope, at this moment of political utopia, to understand better what actually happened and to try to imbue the present with hope.
Regina Melim is a professor and researcher at the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina – Florianópolis. She lives in Florianópolis.
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