What would a decolonized Lisbon sound like?
Intervening sonically in public Lisbon spaces that carry a lot of colonial and racist charge. The sound of spaces of which history and its voice have been silenced and the acoustic propagation of racialized voices as a simbolic gesture of solidarity.
WHAT WOULD A DECOLONIZED LISBON SOUND LIKE? Sonic intervention, December 2020
In December 2020, six racialized Lisboners were invited to imagine a sound they would want heard in a space that had silenced them.
The project departs from a simple but charged question: what does a city sound like when its colonial history is acoustically present rather than suppressed? It began with a decision to put privilege in service of others - whiteness, the resources and networks of an intellectual middle-class background, and audio-visual skills - and to place these in solidarity with racialized Lisboners and the fight against structural and everyday racist injustice.
Working in collaboration with six activists, artists and thinkers of different fields, six locations in Lisbon emblematic of Portuguese colonialism were chosen. Each collaborator recorded a sound - all of them voices - to be placed in their chosen site. A speaker was then brought to each location, allowing these recordings to physically inhabit and interrupt the sonic status quo of spaces whose histories remain largely unacknowledged.
The intervention was unsanctioned in all but one location: the Tropical Botanical Garden, formerly the site of a human zoo, where an official permit was requested and granted.
The project does not position itself as documentary, nor does it address an external audience as its primary concern. It was conceived as a gesture of solidarity with the anti-racist movement active in Lisbon, and its symbolic weight belongs first and foremost to the six people who shaped it.
A 23-minute video documentation with English subtitles exists and is made available selectively, with the consent of all involved.
A project by Taiga Trigo in collaboration with Carla Fernandes, Naky Gaglo, Selma Uamusse, Nuna, Paulo Pascoal, and Isabel Taunay. Camera support by Joyce V. Newzrella.
Here is some info about the absolutely stellar folk involved in this project and their work:
Carla Fernandes: https://radioafrolis.com/sobre/ https://youtu.be/fWhAGbu2RUI
Naky Gaglo: https://africanlisbontour.com/about-me/
Selma Uamusse: Www.Selmauamusse.Com https://youtu.be/TKIydd8fYdA
Nuna : @itsnuna
Paulo Pascoal: @Paulopascoal_
Isabel Taunay https://vimeo.com/user9852095
Joyce Newzrella @Joycenewzrella
24–09–2024