The “ROOTS Connections” program, designed to reflect the various views that one has of slavery, both in its historical aspect and in its more contemporary part, namely through art, starts this Friday, November 10th, in Lagos.
The kick-off is given at 18:00 with a debate, at Galeria Lar, in LAC, in Lagos, on the theme “From Caravelas to Greenhouses: paths of slavery in the Algarve between the XNUMXth and XNUMXst centuries”.
The presentations are given by Professor Arlindo Caldeira, on “Being a slave in the Algarve in the XNUMXth to XNUMXth centuries”, by Edileny Tomé da Mata (“From slavery to black African citizenship: the case of Andalusia”) and Sofia Justino, from the Association for Family Planning (APF), which will intervene with the immigrant population on “reproductive sexuality and human trafficking”.
On Saturday, November 11, there is, from 10:30 am, a commented visit to the Slavery Route Museum Center and to the medieval-modern urban nucleus, with the archaeologists Elena Morán and Rui Parreira.
At 18:30 pm, the musician “M-PeX” and the dancer “El Conguito” will perform at Galeria Lar.
On the 18th of November, at 18 pm, there is the inauguration of an exhibition of plastic arts at Armazém Regimental de Lagos, followed by a visit to the exhibition at Galeria Lar. The guest artists are El Conguito (France), Kwame Sousa (S. Tomé and Príncipe), Mikko Angesleva (Finland), Valdemar Doria (S. Tomé and Príncipe) and M-PeX (Portugal).
On the same day, there will be presentations “Roots”, with M-PeX and “El Conguito”, at a time and place yet to be defined. This exhibition will be open until January 27, and can be visited from Thursday to Saturday, from 15:00 pm to 20:00 pm.
In order to enrich the artistic residency “Roots”, which runs until November 20, at the Creative Activities Laboratory, LAC, not only giving research material to guest artists, but also in order to share experiences, studies, concepts and ideas , “it became pertinent to create a transversal program during the residency and continuing during the exhibition”, explains the organization.
This “Roots Connections” «is thus an informal program that aims to stimulate reflection on the principles that support the creation of this residency, designed to reflect the various views that one has of slavery, either in its historical matrix where it is articulated in the knowledge raised by the more recent archaeological studies, or in the connections established by some interveners in contemporaneity», he adds.
“Roots” itself «is an artistic residency that addresses the theme of slavery through a contemporary vision, creating new routes and transcultural flows, through the reflection of the cultural diversity of formerly colonizing and colonized countries, and their influences on the creation of a global and plural miscegenation, questioning and identifying the roots of this process».
Starting from the discovery of a cemetery of former slaves - in fact, it is a trash can with 155 skeletons piled on top of each other in Vale da Gafaria – “LAC decided to carry out the project, inviting artists from the visual arts, music, dance and performance to, in artistic residency, develop a work that has as its starting point the slavery reality, being these free to develop their work, individually or collectively».
“Roots” refers “to the original meaning of the word, either in the sense of having been the slave torn from his ancestral roots, or to the roots that, over time and successive generations, were created in the countries of destination, shaping its contemporary cultural identity, for example, becomes evident in the cases of Brazil and Cape Verde».
In addition to this, it refers «to the idea of route, route and journey, departure and arrival gate, of which Lagos is an example and an active participant».
“Roots” already has three performances: 2011, in Lagos, 2013 in Maputo (Mozambique) and 2014, in São Tomé and Príncipe.
In 2017, “Roots” returns to Lagos to, from the starting point of the project, «reinforce its international bent and prepare to reach other continents and other cultural realities, equating, from new and different perspectives, the dimensions, both historical and contemporary, of the phenomenon of slavery” and “its political, social, economic and cultural causes and consequences”.
LAC – Creative Activities Laboratory is a non-profit cultural association formed in 1995 and headquartered in the Old Prison of Lagos.
The association is an artistic residency space whose priority is to develop and expand the PRALAC – Artist Residency Program in LAC, with the main objective of energizing and promoting artistic creation in the region and especially in the southwestern Algarve.
There, several international projects are developed, such as ARTURb – United Artists in Residence, “Roots” and “Kick in the eye”. LAC is a structure financed by the Ministry of Culture/General Directorate of Arts.
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