In this session, we highlight Portuguese-speaking participants in the official exhibition of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale: Banga Coletivo, Cartografia Negra and Margarida Waco. We also screen two films commissioned by the Brazilian Pavilion, "Terra", winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best National Participation at the Biennale.


‘5.5706° S, 12.1976° E Sedimentary Myths’, 7’, Margarida Waco, 2023 [Angola]

5.5706° S, 12.1976° E - Sedimentary Myths records a love letter to Cabinda. Nestled at the mouth of the Congo Basin and surrounded by the Atlantic, our soils and waters - two disobedient bodies that hold records of centuries of extractive violence - echo the broken sobs of a disputed territory. Sedimentary Myths yearns to emerge with interwoven and aggregated histories, inscribed in our repositories in a single gesture, allowing us to project a future where we unite our voices to chant Dipanda/Independence.

‘O corpo da terra [The Body of Earth]’, 12’, Day Rodrigues, 2023 [Brazil]

The preservation of the land and the thought of Afro-Brazilian architecture in the origin and identity of the country, narrated in the Terreiro Casa Branca (Bahia/Salvador), by a timeless encounter that opens up through textures, voices and memories and guides us along an archaeology of ancestry.

‘Terra Nakupa’, 17’, Juliana Vicente, 2023 [Brazil]

The video installation 'Terra Nakupa' is a project about the construction of Brasilia from a black/indigenous perspective and its consequences in our imaginary of Brazil. Through a poetic record, we will discuss this little-talked-about perspective of the construction of the country's political centre, tensioning historical spaces from the founding of Brazil to the current moment.

‘Root City’, 15’, Cartografia Negra, 2023 [Brazil]

The ‘Root City’ poetry video was born out of a desire to tell the stories of black people, who have been invisibilised in the official narrative of São Paulo. By browsing through photographs and maps from the Moreira Salles Institute's collection and other documents, the film seeks to bring to light more stories of the African, diasporic and Afro-Brazilian peoples who lived in São Paulo.

‘Oku Tumala Oku Tequila’, 30’, Banga Colectivo, 2022 [Angola]

The short film Oku tumala oku tekula [The act of sitting and creating] follows on from the project entitled 'The Bench', developed by Banga Colectivo in 2021, which aims to deepen our knowledge of Angola's informal markets, which are responsible for the livelihoods of many families. The short film focuses on a street artist and his relationship with the market where he works.