Carla Cruz

The project “Women, Arts and dictatorship – Portugal, Brazil and Portuguese speaking African Countries” will be developed by the research group “Gender, Arts and Post-Colonial Studies” GAPS (CEHUM/ UMinho). This project aims to produce an analysis of the work by women artists from Portuguese speaking countries (Portugal, Brazil and Lusophone Africa) in the second half of the twentieth century, who in different ways deal with aspects of the dictatorship. The main goal is to make visible the presence of women as creators of aesthetic canons, literary and artistic. Through the analysis of a variety of case studies we want to contribute to a revision of the histories of art and literature. The project draws on a transversal and comparative methodology which has as its main focus a diversity of narratives from the fields of the visual arts, literature, film, theatre and performance. We will analyze the work produced by women artists of different generations and different geographical contexts whose artistic practice reflects on or resists to the authoritarian regimes/dictatorships and their direct or camouflaged domination.

Taking into account the invisibility of women as artistic creators and their representation in the history of art and literature, we intend to contribute to a revision/reconfiguration of the artistic and literary canons of the 20th c., having Portugal as axis and conducting contrastive or complementary case studies with the former African colonies and Brazil.

Casa da Esquina, 6.30pm
R. Aires de Campos
3000-014
Coimbra

Performance around the role of women in the contemporary Portuguese Society based in the project of Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta e Maria Velho da Costa: “New Portuguese Letters”, written during 1971, while Portugal was under the Salazar dictatorship – using parts of the original text, news, and text written by the artist. The strange narrative is accompanied with the unveiling of a painted banner with a sequence of eight episodes that portray the roles women are still expected to play in our society.