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On June 29th, we had the last opportunity to see Délio Jasse’s thought-provoking exhibition, "As Colónias Vão Ser Países". The exhibition took place at the Pavilhão Branco in Lisbon, where curator Marta Jecu led a private tour for the 100 Collectors group.
Délio Jasse discusses Portugal’s ill-resolved relationship with its former colonies using documents, photos, and archives of this shared history. Born in Angola, which was ruled by Portugal until 1974, the 43-year-old artist left his hometown of Luanda to live in Lisbon in 1999. The state took seven years to issue his documents.
As he waited for his citizenship to be formalised—his great-grandfather was Portuguese—Délio Jasse studied and gathered documents from other people. The exhibition As Colónias Vão Ser Países unveils the way in which, through the artist’s hands, accounts of the colonial past become the very objects for questioning history and the power of narrative.
Our group listened to this story as they were guided by Marta Jecu through the twelve series and works that use sophisticated image techniques.
More than ever, the work of artists like Délio Jasse is playing an important role in bringing these issues under the spotlight while, in terms of public debate, they are still being swept under the carpet. The Portuguese government has just rejected the possibility of reparations to former colonies following President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s statement acknowledging Portugal’s responsibility for crimes committed during the colonial era.
Jasse is one of the artists whose important work reconsiders issues of decoloniality, i.e., the idea that societies have not completely freed themselves from colonialism with independence, as the institutional aspects of colonialist processes have remained.
Contemporary art addresses pressing global issues - we bring our 100 Collectors’ members to take part in them.
