Reflections Towards The End

Countries you were in: Angola, Mozambique

Countries for next quarter: USA

Current location: Takoma Park, MD

Dear Watson Foundation,

The last time I wrote to you all I was going through culture shock and major re-adjustment in Luanda, Angola. I was living with only men for the first time during my Watson year and mobility was not as smooth as I thought it would be. Even through all of these challenges, my project took a turn for the best! I was exhausted and overwhelmed the entire month there, but I felt like I had more purpose and understanding in my project than ever before. I started learning about the Angolan art scene at MOVART gallery while shadowing a visionary curator, Marcos Jinguba. His gallery focused on residency cycles for primarily women artists in the Portuguese-speaking world and he had a great personal passion for the development of Angolan contemporary art. I went to openings with him, shadowed some of the artists in the residency, saw his favorite spots in the city, and met some other fantastic curators. He told me about his dreams of opening up the first Angolan owned gallery and how he wanted to travel the world like me and make Angolan contemporary art internationally renowned. He was one person that I wish I could give the Watson to and I felt like that with a lot of people throughout my year. Another young curator, Parasol, let me in on the behind the scenes of his first major show on Angolan Contemporary Art at the National Bank. Through this show, I met even more contacts and got to see such a wide scope of diverse contemporary visual languages. 

I loved that most of my Angolan friends understood when I said alternative art spaces. It was the first place where that consistently happened to me and it led to crucial turning points within my year where my idea of alternative space was further expanded. I was next introduced to Kassemba Terra Preta, a childhood home turned community center founded by Antonio Paciencia located on the outskirts of the city. Antonio’s space consists of a library, recording studio, stunning murals, slam poetry events, technical trainings, dance lessons, and more. I was amazed at his passion and persistence when it came to giving back to where he came from. He was someone who called me out on focusing more in the center of the city—which was what the government wanted me to see—and from that comment my focus in Luanda really changed.

After I went to two local libraries in the periphery, Livros São Portas and Despadronizada, shown to me by another up and coming curator, Dario. Despadronizada is located under a highway bridge in Viana, Luanda. I have never seen such an impactful use of an everyday space. The library was packed, kids were reading next to the highway, there were discussions and lectures on all sorts of topics, an art fair, and the founder Dago who is one of the most radical leaders I’ve ever met. He really reminded me how integral political change should be to the art world. I loved hearing how he was inspired by the Brazilian Movimento Sem Terra, which really emphasizes the occupation of public spaces and shows the strong communication between the lusophone world. Dago felt that he could do the best work in the neighborhood where he grew up and focused on the emancipatory power of education and the arts. His space is meant to further inspire others to create the space they don’t see. I found Despadronizada to be so creative, energetic, and radical. It’s hard to fully describe so I will attach a photo of it below. I started to think about how privileged I was to not only grow up with free museums but also easily accessible community centers and libraries, a space that was key to my childhood and that I always took for granted. It’s a kind of space that should be a human right and lets community members explore, learn, create, and grow. I made friends, played, read, and developed into who I am today. I feel more of a responsibility now to cultivate alternative education, artistic, and community spaces like these. 

I would say that during my brief yet transformational time in Luanda, I experienced the highest highs and lowest lows. Walking around alone as a woman was always a struggle. I took so many phone numbers that I didn’t want to. I yelled at a sexist visa officer and was objectified by men in professional spaces. As you can see, I met so many men leading the Angolan art scene. I tried branching out in Luanda to find some queer and female artists and activists, however, the obvious gender inequality really shook me like it did in Timor-Leste and I knew that in Mozambique I had to be more intentional. I would still use what I learned with Antonio and focus on getting to the peripheries and community centers, however, I wanted to prioritize my time on listening to women artists and leaders and getting to know their struggles and dreams when it comes to space. For the sake of my project in terms of inclusion and for my own mental health. 

Once I arrived in Maputo, I was lucky to meet one of my closest friends, Ligia, in the first week there. This was the first location where I made a tight knit group of girlfriends and I felt rejuvenated. A lot of my two months in Mozambique were getting to know Ligia’s family and what day to day life is like for those that live on the outskirts. Some of my best memories in Mozambique were dancing with my girlfriends, taking the chapa to nearby cities, and meeting Ligia’s grandma on Inhaca island. My Portuguese improved rapidly and I have no idea what to do now with my Mozambican Portuguese. During my stay in Maputo, I also made it a goal to live with a host family and I ended up staying in a household in the periphery with four generations of women, my main contact being a poet. I loved hanging out with the kids, eating mata-bixu (breakfast), and learning what it is like for a female artist to live in a multigenerational household. I felt like there was nowhere else I could live that was so far from my own reality and so close to the Mozambican culture female experience. 

On top of my unique living experience, I also visited the ateliers of several female artists and listened to their ideas of how they wanted to enter the market and how important their domestic space was to them and their creative process. I saw some of the most visionary interior designs in my life. I also learned how individual space is such a privileged and Western concept and how that can translate poorly into the global art world. Mozambican women don’t usually have the time to prioritize art, exhibitions, libraries, and even school because of the way society is structured, the location that these spaces are in, and the domestic gender roles they are meant to follow. However, I was amazed by the women I met who did create with few resources and minimal space and I continue to dream on how to best support women artists around the world and create the space that they need.

In the last month of my Watson, I flew up north to visit the first capital of Mozambique-- Nampula, Mozambique Island. Here I got to experience the crossroads of so many cultures, live alongside the first Muslim majority community so far during my Watson, and visit local ateliers to see silversmithing, basket weaving, and hand dyed textiles. I also saw the UNESCO World Heritage sites full of the heavy and bloody history of Portuguese colonialism such as the oldest chapel in southern Africa and many unmarked warehouses where enslaved people were kept. The island was steeped with suffering and resistance, however, a culturally and artistically rich community continues to persist. To support this community directly I spent a lot of my time buying local art. One of my biggest Watson regrets was not buying more art! I loved getting to know Mozambican artists and supporting them directly and I’m glad I saved enough of my stipend to do so and share some of the work with the other fellows at the conference.

My last week of the Watson was filled with so many tearful goodbyes and wonderful conversations through radio. A photographer and journalist, Ouri Pota, showed me the National Radio Mozambique complex. It was a goal of mine to visit a radio station during my Watson year and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect experience. I felt right at home at Radio Mozambique and spoke on air for three different shows. It was a great exercise in trying to summarise and explain my year in a different language. I loved chatting to people from the different departments especially the archive with a sweet older man who explained the historical significance of the station during Mozambique’s independence. It was mind-blowing and further solidified my profound appreciation for audiovisual archives. 

On a sidenote, between Angola and Mozambique, the theme of family ran deep for me. I’ve learned about the importance of family and the expansion of the term. I realized that my own family already operates like the expanded family in Angola and Mozambique. I have many international exchange sisters, many 2nd, 3rd, 4th, single moms in the neighborhood, and a whole other side of my family from Cambodia. In the U.S. it is complicated to explain this or fully embrace my expanded family, but now I see that in countries like Angola and Mozambique, this is totally normal and in fact encouraged. The bigger the family, the more love, security, and support. I want to continue this open mindset when constructing my own family and community and continue to expand the term even when the U.S.’s political climate can discourage it. I now have family in Luanda, Maputo, and Inhaca! How cool is that?!

I also loved how throughout this Watson journey each country taught me something new, related to myself and my project. However, my project is so myself it is hard for me to not get emotional or feel this intense responsibility around it. Being home and throughout my last months, I constantly pondered whether I had done enough. What more do I want to know? What answers were already inside me and why? What have I been looking for? I think one sure answer for what I’ve been looking for is my voice, as corny as it sounds. My voice is sometimes found through another language, a completely new space, and perhaps even a space that doesn’t exist yet. I already sense more ease and confidence in expressing myself and I fear losing that while being back at home. 

Professionally, I realized how I want my future work to be politically engaged and linguistically diverse. I have no idea what career fits with that at the moment. I’ve learned that a lot of the issues in the art world are similar everywhere, but the solutions aren’t. They are so dependent on the local community and its needs. I see the benefits of the Portuguese speaking world further connecting with each other’s artistic community. I’ve learned to listen and unlearn which helps me connect deeper with others and the world around me. I realized how the art world needs to open its minds and broaden its perspective on what art and space can be. We should act as an area that is more expansive and creative. Look to the unknown and try to grapple with it. I love art but I don’t love its gatekeeping. I want expanded access and I personally want to belong to a space where I feel free to create and express myself.

What to do after? Who knows? But I know I will stick to these habits of engaging with new people, writing every day, creating, and trying new things. Even if I don’t work in the arts, I will be a part of some space and now I can better critically analyze said space and politicize it. I want to say thank you thank you thank you obrigada X10000 to all of you for this life changing and mind boggling experience. I truly think of it as a journey and a journey I will continue with forever. My friend group in Mozambique gave me a goodbye card that says happy journey which I think says it all. Thank you Sneha, Chris, Sasha, and everyone at the foundation. I also loved meeting you all and the fellows at the conference. It was an emotional and transformational week. I loved finding how much we all had in common even though we had completely different projects. I also loved hearing about how people used museums and art spaces within their year! I find that so cool and says it all about why spaces like these are integral to society. Sending love always, 

Vivian B.

For more photos and details on the spaces I documented you can check this out!!! 

https://artepratodos.com/photowatson/angola

Pictures of Despadronizada:?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M8l70DM9PxTsMq-dvZdNg8mz7JJXHjm0n31PyAG1jqQ/edit?usp=sharing