Glimpses Into São Tomé and Príncipe’s Art and Culture Biennial · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

[All links lead to Portuguese language pages]
Giving a voice to the seventh edition of the Art & Culture Biennial of São Tomé and Principe, which started on November 28, artists, journalists and visitors have been commenting on the event that is scheduled to run until February 28, 2014. Some of the ideas behind this biennial are featured together with images and music in a video produced by the organization.
In the video, artist Olavo Amado talks about his work “(Re)vestir monumentos” (a play with words around dressing and covering monuments), in which he reflects on the past colonization of the country by coating old and historical sculptures with new clothes and local patterns.
Kwame Sousa, also a Santomean artist who has around 65 works to be exhibited in the Biennial, introduces his 12 “colonial widows”, making connections between “today's society and the colonization of yesterday” as well as the mixing of cultures.
For Hernane Ferreira, a visitor from Cape Verde, the Biennial “contributes a lot by introducing pieces of São Tomé to the world” as well as by introducing new ways of being and thinking to the country.
The video starts with the following quote from Santomean journalist São de Deus Lima:
Let us dare to dismiss the stigma of fear and prejudices that threaten to hinder our wings.
Let us dare to instill a fair, sufficient dose of impatience in our ways, in our pace of making.
We want to relearn how to celebrate our splendor and exorcise our horrors.
To rethink the way we look and see ourselves, without ever abnegating ourselves, because we are.
Sao de Deus Lima for the Biennal of São Tomé and Príncipe
Watch the video:
Photos, updates and the program are being shared on the Facebook pages of the Biennial of São Tomé and Príncipe and CACAU (an acronym for House of the Arts, Creation, Environment, Utopias – Casa das Artes Criação Ambiente Utopias – which also means cocoa), where most of the activities take place.