Mónica de Miranda is a Portuguese artist of Angolan origin who lives and works between Lisbon and Luanda. Filmmaker, Artist and researcher, her work is based on themes of urban archaeology and affective geographies. She works in an interdisciplinary way with drawing, installation, photography, film, video and sound, in its expanded forms and in the boundaries between fiction and documentary. She is graduated in Visual Arts and Sculpture from Camberwell College of Arts (London) and PhD in Artistic Studies from Middlesex University (London). In 2019, she was nominated for the New artist prize at MAAT and in 2016 for the Novo Photo Banco Prize, exhibiting as one of the finalists at the Berardo Collection Museum. Her solo exhibitions include: Geografia Dormente (Galeria Municipal de Arte, Almada, Portugal, 2019); Tomorrow is another day(Carlos Carvalho Gallery, Lisbon, 2018); Panorama (Banco Economico, Luanda, 2018); Atlantic. A Journey to the center of the earth (Galería Sabrina Amrani, Madrid, Spain, 2017); Panorama (Tyburn Gallery. London, UK, 2017); Arrivals and departures (Palácio D. Manuel, Évora, 2016); Hotel Globo (Museu Nacional de arte contemporânea do Chiado, Lisbon, 2015); Arquipélago (Galeria Carlos Carvalho , Lisbon, 2014); Erosion (Appleton Square, Lisbon, 2013); An Ocean Between Us(Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon, 2012); Novas Geografias (198 Gallery, London / Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon / Imagem HF, Amsterdam, 2008).

Among her collective exhibitions : African Cosmologies- Foto fest (Houston, USA,2020), South circular, Maat (Lisbon, 2019); Utopia and Dystopia in Contemporary Landscapes at Bienar du Sur, MAAC ( +Guayaquil, Ecuador,2020 ); Taxidermy of the future, Biennale Lubumbashi (Congo, 2019); Architecture and Manufacturing, at MAAT in Lisbon (2019); Panorama, Banco Económico (Luanda, 2019); Doublethink: Doublevision, Pera Museum (Istanbul, 2017); Daqui Pra Frente, Caixa Cultural (Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, 2017-2018); Vila Franca de Xira Biennial Photography (2017); Dakar Biennial in Senegal (2016); Bienal de Casablanca (2016); Addis Foto Fest (2016); Encontros Fotográficos de Bamako (2015); MNAC (2015); 14ª Bienal de Arquitectura de Veneza (2014); Bienal São Tomé e Principe (2013); Estado Do Mundo, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (2008).

She is one of the founders of the Hangar project (Artist Residency Centre, Lisbon, 2014).

Her work is represented in several public and private collections, including: Calouste Gulbenkian, MNAC, MAAT, FAS, Centro Cultural de Lagos, Photographic Archive of Lisbon.

Nithya Iyer is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher of South Indian Tamil-descent. Raised in Melbourne, Australia, she currently resides in Lisbon, Portugal. Her practice dialogues between written, embodied and visual inquiries that explore alternative modes of sense- and meaning-making as a means of exploring alterity, intersubjectivity and decoloniality. With a focus on cumulative and iterative projects that span solo and group performance through to experiential, participatory installation, writing and voice, Nithya seeks to articulate generative modalities of arts practice as means of both research and form, attempting to disrupt traditional parameters of aesthetics and performance through the enactment of ambiguous territories.

Nithya was the recipient of the 2020 Ian Potter Cultural Trust arts grant, facilitating a year-long residency at the Hangar Centre for Artistic Investigation where she produced ‘An Indefinite Series of Discontinuous Acts’ – a collaborative research project exploring the possibilities of alternate forms of knowledge-making. In the same year she was commissioned to facilitate a workshop, ‘Notes from Atopia’, exploring pandemic placelessness as part of the 4Cs Project – From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture.

Nithya is the co-founder of interdisciplinary arts collective L&NDLESS, performing durational and experimental works at festivals across Australia. Her solo performance debut ‘Vengayam’ premiered at the This Is Not Art festival, (New South Wales, Australia), later featuring at the Kampni Kutcheri festival in Bengaluru, India, by the esteemed Natya STEM Dance Kampni. In Lisbon, Nithya’s performance on the history of the colour Lapis Lazuli, entitled LAZULI/#FA0027, was featured at Nanogaleria, curated by Miguel Palma, Luisa Santos and Ana Fabiola Mauricio.

Nithya was trained for 12 years at the Chandrabhanu Bharatalaya Academy of Indian Dance and a former member of Indian dance collective Jambudvipa Ensemble. Nithya holds a BA in Politics and International Relations/Accounting and Finance, and a Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice from the Melbourne Institute of Experiential and Creative Art Therapy.

Dzifa Peters is a German-Ghanaian visual artist and researcher. She studied Fine Arts with focus on sculpture and installation at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, as well as Postgraduate Media Arts at Academy of Media Arts Cologne with focus on photography and installation. As a Ph.D. candidate in Culture Studies, she is currently working on her doctorate in the field of AfroDiasporic identities and their visual representations at The Lisbon Consortium and the Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC) at Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon. She is also a Visiting Doctoral Researcher at the Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at JustusLiebig-Universität Giessen, as well as working internationally as a freelance artist and on curatorial projects. Her research project is funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and analyses colonial, postcolonial, diasporic, and contemporary identities through the format of photography, to investigate phenomena of identity constructions that indicate alternations of coexisting cultural identities and perspectives. Research fields include: Postcolonial Studies, Black Studies, Migration Studies, Media Studies, Memory Studies, Performativity Studies, Semiology, Visual Culture Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology and Arts-based Research. Her method of analysis embodies a comparative approach within Cross-Cultural Studies and embraces interdisciplinarity between the research fields. In her artistic work, Dzifa Peters also examines forms of cultural identity and their representations. She works with the media photography, photomontage, with sound and video, texts and installations. Her work is project and process oriented. As an artist who grew up in two different cultures(Germany and Ghana), she increasingly uses autobiographical material in an autofictional manner in order to negotiate socio-collective topics. She has participated in several exhibitions internationally and has received various artistic grants amongst them DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and Ministry for Families, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia Germany.

March 5th, 6 pm
EP1 – Afro-Now-Ism
Azu Nwagbogu and Mónica de Miranda

Conversation between Azu Nwagbogu and Mónica de Miranda about the exhibition Just my Imagination (Run Away with Me).

Azu Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. Nwagbogu was appointed as the Interim Director/ Head Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa from June 2018 to August 2019. Nwagbogu also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the publisher of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas. Nwagbogu is a curator with a special interest in future museology.

April 1st, 6 pm
EP2 – “South-to-South is not a postcode”
Cindy Sissokho and Fabian Villegas

Conversation between Cindy Sissokho, Fabian Villegas and Nithya Iyer.
Fabian Villegas is a Mexican-born writer, journalist, artist, scholar and researcher in Southern epistemologies, decolonial thoughts and racial studies. He has presented extensively across Central and South America and globally, and is the founder of the collaborative knowledge production project, Contranarrativas. Cindy Sissokho was raised in the suburbs of Paris and is a curator, cultural producer and writer with a specific interest in intellectual, political and artistic aspects of decoloniality within the arts, and culture. She is currently the Curator and Special Projects Producer at New Art Exchange, Nottingham (UK). Their exhibition at Hangar entitled ‘Our (spatial) stories live in performative futures’ was the result of a series of workshops in which Cindy and Fabian collaborated with artists using their own pedagogical approaches to building counter-narratives in research and arts practice. In this conversation, they discuss challenges and insights of cultivating counter pedagogies and the meaning of South-to-South dialogues as fostered through this work and in their own research journeys.

Cindy Sissokho (France) is a curator, cultural producer and writer with a specific interest in intellectual, political and artistic aspects of decoloniality within the arts, and culture. Her curatorial practice is nurtured by the urgency to broaden and disseminate epistemologies and cultural production from racialized and systemically marginalized perspectives.

Recent exhibition projects include this is a love poem, (2021) curated at EXILE Gallery, Vienna for the international contemporary arts festival Curatedby (Austria) and Breaking Translation(s) (2021) an online exhibition for HANGAR, Lisbon (Portugal). Upcoming exhibition projects will be the curation of Black Tales, a multimedia sound installation by artists Mónica De Miranda and Xullaji for Refuge, the 4th edition of the Lagos Biennale 2023 (Nigeria).

Her practice is also informed through multiple formats of engagement such as talks and pedagogical workshops. Most recent activities were How to Articulate (A) Collective Gaze(s)? in collaboration with Fabián Villegas in 2020 for both Les Rencontres d’Arles (France) and HANGAR, Lisbon (Portugal).

She articulates and brings curatorial and theoretical reflections through writings including art reviews and interviews for Ocula, Terremoto, The Sole Adventurer, The Kitchen, NYC and Nka: The Contemporary African Art Journal, and publication commissions.

She also has a great interest in artist development and artistic consultancy that translate into frequent mentoring roles and portfolio reviews. The most recent being with the PhMuseum, Bologna (Italy) and the annual FORMAT Photography Festival, Derby (UK).

She currently works as a Curator and Special Projects Producer at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham (UK).

Fabian Villegas is a writer, journalist, spoken word artist, scholar and researcher in South epistemologies, decolonial thoughts and racial studies. Since 2007 to date, Fabian Villegas has been invited to give multiple conferences, seminars, lectures and workshops in various universities and academic centers, renowned art biennials and community cultural centers across the globe (México, Dominican Republic, France, Spain, Puerto Rico, Brasil, Uruguay, Argentina, Guatemala, Dubai, Morocco, Costa Rica, U.S, Venezuela, Belice. He is also the co-founder of Contranarrativas, a collaborative project that seeks to create horizontal knowledge production spaces to stimulate the visibility, dissemination, and production of decolonial epistemologies, narratives and peripheral aesthetics of the Global South. Born in Mexico City, Villegas currently resides in the Dominican Republic.

May 22th, 6 pm
EP3 – I am my own source
Sandim Mendes

Conversation between Sandim Mendes and Nithya Iyer.

Sandim Mendes (1986) is a Cape Verdean artist born and raised in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her artworks reflect on her upbringing, focussing on the concept of identity within these various cultures. As described by the essay of Mariana Aboim in the book series Atlantica: Contemporary Art from Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome e Principe, and its Diaspora, Sandim’s photographic – or imagetic – investigations ask: how can intergenerational modes of storytelling become archival resources of that which is unaccounted for? In what ways can inherited memories catalyse artistic production? During her visit to Hangar in 2022, these questions and more formed part of her inquiry and her exhibition. In this talk with Hangar radio, Sandim shares her approach to creating work, her ancestry and its influence on understanding the role of her work in meaning-making, and the colonialist inheritances of diasporic identities.

Sandim Mendes (1986) is a Cape Verdean artist born and raised in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her artworks are a direct result of this upbringing, investigating the concept of identity within these various cultures. Through photography, performances, textile, drawings, printmaking and installations, she expresses her findings.

May 29th, 6 pm
EP4 – Hybridity Has Come A Long Way
Dzifa Peters and Ângela Ferreira

A conversation between Dzifa Peters and Ângela Ferreira about her artistic practice, discussing projects such as Maison Tropicale (2007), Dalaba: Sol d’Exil (2019), and her solo exhibition A Spontaneous Tour of Some Monuments of African Architecture (2021) at HANGAR – Centro de Investigação Artística, curated by Bruno Leitão.

Ângela Ferreira, born in 1958 in Maputo, Mozambique, grew up in South Africa and obtained her MFA from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. She lives and works in Lisbon, teaching Fine Art at Lisbon University, where she obtained her doctorate in 2016. Ferreira’s work is concerned with the ongoing impact of colonialism and post-colonialism on contemporary society, an investigation that is conducted through in-depth research and distillation of ideias into concise and resonant forms. She represented Portugal at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, continuing her investigations into the ways in which European modernism to adapted or failed to adapt to the realities of the African continent by tracing the history of Jean Prouvé’s’ Maison Tropicale’. Architecture also serves as a starting point for the deepening of her long research on the erasure of colonial memory and the refusal of reparation, which finds its most complex materialization in A Tendency to Forget (2015) focusing on ethnographic work of the couple Jorge and Margot Dias. The Pan African Unity Mural (2018), exhibited at the Maat Museum Lisbon and Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden was conceived, retrospectively and introspectively, for the “here” and the “now”. In addition to its own trajectory, other biographical stories are simultaneously narrated, exposed and hidden in this work. In Dalaba: Sol d’Exil (2019) a work focused on Miriam Makeba, one of the most prominent figures in the struggle against apartheid, Ferreira created sculptural pieces based on the architectural elements of the exile building where Makeba lived in Conakri, almost like a prototype of the relationship between modernist and African vernacular architectures. Her sculptural, sound and videographic homages have continuously referenced economic, political and cultural history of the African continent whilst recuperating the work and image of unexpected figures like Peter Blum, Carlos Cardoso, Ingrid Jonker, Jimi Hendrix, Jorge Ben Jor, Jorge dos Santos, Diego Rivera, Miriam Makeba, Angela Davis or Forough Farrokhzad.

Selected works: #BucketsystemMustFall (2021); A Spontaneous Tour of Some Monuments of African Architecture (2021); Talk Tower for Forough Farrokhzad (2020); 1 Million Roses for Angela Davis (2020); Power Structures (Crouch-touch- pause-engage) (2020); Dalaba: Sol d’Exil (2019); Pan African Unity Mural (2018); Remining (2017); Talk Tower for Diego Rivera (2017); Boca (2016); Wattle and Daub (2016); Hollows Tunnels, Cavities and more… (2016); A Tendency to Forget (2015); Messy Colonialism: Wild Decolonization (2015); Revolutionary Traces (2014); SAAL Brigades (2014); Independance Cha Cha (2014); Entrer dans la mine (2013); Mount Mabu (2013); Stone Free (2012); Political Cameras (from Mozambique séries) (2012); Collapsing Structures/ Talking Buildings (2012); Cape Sonnets (2010/2012); For Mozambique (2008); Maison Tropicale (2007).

July 4th, 6 pm
EP 5 – Taking care of this place we hold
Margarida Mendes

Conversation between Margarida Mendes and Nithya Iyer.

Margarida Mendes is a Lisbon-based curator and researcher exploring the overlap between cybernetics, ecology and experimental film. Her personal research investigates the dynamic transformations of the environment and its impact on societal structures and cultural production. Through her collaborative practice, programming, and activism, Margarida enacts alternative modes of education and political resilience. In this talk, Margarida discusses the idea of ‘curatorial rhizomes’ as spaces in which different elements are interwoven and disseminated to a plurality of audiences across transdisciplinary and multisensory mediums. Other subjects discussed include: the importance of care in facilitating collective spaces of affect, how ritual has come to play a role in her approach towards imagining collective modalities, and the significance of feminist approaches to ecological inquiry.

Margarida Mendes is a researcher, curator and ecologist, exploring the overlap between systems thinking experimental film, sound practices and ecopedagogy. She creates transdisciplinary forums, exhibitions and experiential works where alternative modes of education and sensing practices may catalyse political imagination and restorative action. Mendes has been long involved in anti-extraction activism and ecopedagogy, collaborating with marine NGOs, Universities and institutions of the art world.

July 11th, 6 pm
EP6 – Colonisation is in good health
Kiluanji Kia Henda

Conversation between Kiluanji Kia Henda and Nithya Iyer.

Kiluanji Kia Henda is a conceptual artist working across multiple disciplines, including photography, videography, performance and installation. Born in Luanda Angola, four years after the country won its independence from Portuguese rule, his work raises questions and possibilities of reinventing identity and politics, both for Angola and in relation to contemporary sites of migration, refuge and decolonization around the world. In March 2022, Kiluanji presented Now That We Found Freedom, What Are We Going To Do With It? An exhibition co-curated by Anna Sophie Salazar, resulting from a residency collaboration with artists from Angola. In this conversation, Kiluanji discusses the intention of the exhibition, the distinction between art and activism, humour as a language of resilience, the importance of correcting historical narratives and the need to acknowledge the ongoing strategies of colonisation.

Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola, 1979) lives and works in Luanda. In his practice, he uses art as a means of transmitting and constructing history, exploring photography, video, performance, installations, object-sculpture, music and avant-garde theatre as ways of materialising fictional narratives and shifting facts to different temporalities and struggles. Using humour and irony, the artist represents the complexity of themes such as identity, politics, and perceptions of post-independence and modernity in Africa. Working in perverted complicity with historical legacy, he sees the process of appropriation and manipulation of public spaces and structures as different constructions of the collective memory.

October 18th, 6 pm
EP7 – Blue Note
Simon Njami

Conversation between Simon Njami and Mónica de Miranda.

A blue note is a musical notation used for expressive purposes, initially in jazz and blues but later adopted by popular music at large, created to account for the non-standard pitches sung or played by musicians. In this talk, Simon Njami asks – what is that blue note that we can bring into contemporaneity? Simon discusses his conception of education as a form of awareness and criticality, and the importance of alternatives to the classical education system for young people. He also ponders the role of art and curatorial practice as modes of sharing and creative expression in a local yet global context, among others.

Simon Njami is a Paris-based independent curator, lecturer, writer and art critic. Njami was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of “Revue Noire“ a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art. He has served as artistic director of the Bamako photography biennale for ten years. He co-curated the first African pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and curated the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008. He has served for ten years (2000/2010) as cultural advisor for the AFAA the cultural branch of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (today Institut Français) in their cultural cooperation policy. He was member of numerous art and photography juries (10 years at Worldpress). Njami has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and photography, including Africa Remix (2004-2007) and The Divine Comedy (Frankfurt, Savanna, Washington DC, 2014/15) African Metropolis (MAXXI, Rome, 2018) and two Editions of the Dak’Art Biennale (2016/2018). He was member of the scientific boards of numerous museums and a Visiting Professor at UCSD (University of San Diego California). He has directed the Pan African master classes in photography (2008/2019), project that he conceived with the Goethe Institut and he is the advisor of AtWork educational format that he co-created with Moleskine Foundation in 2012 and continues to conduct it until the present moment. He is also currently setting up the permanent collection of contemporary art for the Memorial Acte museum in Guadeloupe. Njami has published seven books, including essays and novels.

December 22nd, 6 pm
EP8 – Algorithmic Colonialism
Pedro Barateiro

Conversation between Pedro Barateiro and Nithya Iyer.

The bio can be as follows: Pedro Barateiro is a Lisbon-based artist from Portugal who works across sculpture, film, performance, writing and drawing. Focusing on the deconstruction of Western binary narratives, his works draw from the notion of the artist as spectator, traversing various elements, practices and arrangements in an attempt to build networks of
meaning from hybridised objects. In June 2022 Pedro presented the exhibition Vento at Hangar, focussing on a particular moment of Portuguese history on the 25th of April, 1974, as captured by Mario Varela Gomes. In this conversation, he speaks with Hangar Radio about the forgotten histories of freedom, the shift from analog to algorithmic fascism, how the growth of data and media-based trade and identity-formation is influencing what is possible in our realities and what relationship this has to our past struggles for freedom.

Pedro Barateiro (Almada, 1979) works in a variety of media, including sculpture, film, performance, writing and drawing.
His work has focused on the deconstruction of western binary narratives. Barateiro organizes events and exhibitions at Spirit Shop, a space managed by him and attached to his studio in Rua da Madalena in Lisbon. In 2020, along with a group of artists, he started the AAVP (Visual Artists Association in Portugal). He held solo exhibitions at CRAC Alsace (2022), Kohta (2022), Rialto6 (2021), REDCAT (2016), Museu Coleção Berardo (2015), Kunsthalle Basel (2010), Kunsthalle Lissabon (2010), Lumiar Cité (2010), Museu de Serralves (2009), among many others. He has participated in group exhibitions such as the 13th Sharjah Biennial (2017), 20th SESC – Videobrasil (2017), 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010), 16th Sydney Biennial (2008) and 5th Berlin Biennial (2008). Barateiro edited the books Temporary Collaborations and ACTIVITY (JRP|Ringier) with artist Ricardo Valentim. He edited the monograph How to Make a Mask, (Kunsthalle Lissabon/ Sternberg Press), The Artist as Spectator and É só uma ferida (It’s only a wound) (Documenta/ Mousse Publishing).

January 5th, 2023, 6 pm
EP9 – MAKING IDENTITY A MORE COMPLEX CONCEPT
Gabriela Salgado

Conversation between Gabriela Salgado and Nithya Iyer

Gabriela Salgado is an Argentine-born curator of contemporary art based in London. Hailing from the Royal College of Art, she was formerly the artistic director of Te Tuhi contemporary art space in New Zealand, curator of public programmes at Tate Modern and the founder of Transatlantic Connections – a programme of creative exchanges for African and Latin American artists. In November, 2022, Gabriela curated an exhibition at Hangar entitled CURAR or TO HEAL. In this conversation, she discusses artists’ diverse knowledge systems, the development of decoloniality in curatorial practices globally and her own trajectory as a subaltern curator ‘complicating’ exhibitions.

Gabriela Salgado is an Argentine-born curator based in London and working internationally. ⁣
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Gabriela has a Curating Contemporary Art Master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, and since 1997 she has curated a large number of exhibitions and has lectured in over twenty countries. She specialized in Latin American art as curator of the Latin American Art Collection at Essex University, UECLAA (1999-2005) and was curator of Public Programmes at Tate Modern (2006-2011). She curated La Otra Bienal in Bogotá, Colombia (2013) and the 2nd Biennale of Thessaloniki, Greece (2009) and acted as jury member for the Prince Claus Awards and Videobrasil Festival. She created ‘Transatlantic Connections’ a programme of exchanges for African and Latin American artists (2011-2016). Between 2017 and 2020 she worked as Artistic Director of Te Tuhi Contemporary Art in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, and in 2022 became director of The Showroom in London. ⁣

March 19th 2023, 6 pm
EP10 – The pulse of the object
Edson Chagas

Conversation between Edson Chagas and Nithya Iyer.

Edson Chagas is an Angolan photographer. Trained as a photojournalist, his works explore cities, consumerism and the affective and relational nature of objects.
In 2013 Edson represented Angola at the 55th Venice Biennale, the Angolan Pavilion winning the Golden Lion for Best National Participation and subsequently was one of three artists shortlisted for the 11th Novo Banco Photo Award, with an exhibition at Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon. In October 2022 Edson presented Factory of Disposable Feelings at Hangar – a series of works taken at the Fábrica Irmãos Carneiro in Luanda, Angola. He talks with Hangar radio about the project and his process.

Chagas was born in 1977 in Luanda, Angola, and lives between Angola and Portugal.
He studied photography at the University of Wales in Newport (2008); London College of Communication (2007); and Portugal’s Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação (2002) and Centro Comunitário de Arcena (1999).
In 2013, Chagas’s Found Not Taken series was exhibited in Luanda, Encyclopedic City, the Angolan Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, winning the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. The series subsequently featured in the inaugural exhibitions at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2017).
He was one of three artists shortlisted for the 11th Novo Banco Photo Award, with an exhibition at Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2015). He is among the recipients of the 2018 African Art Award presented by the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
Solo exhibitions have taken place at the Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna (2016); Instituto Camões – Centro Cultural Português, Luanda (2014); Belfast Exposed Photography (2014) and Memorial Agostinho Neto, Luanda (2013), in addition to two solo shows at Stevenson (2014 and 2019), one solo show at Apalazzo Gallery (2013) and one solo show at Insofar Art Gallery (2021). Chagas features in the 8th Triennial of Photography Hamburg (2022). He has previously shown in notable group exhibitions including Shifting Dialogues: Photography from The Walther Collection at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (2022); African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other, 18th FotoFest Biennial, Houston (2020); Crossing Night: Regional Identities X Global Context, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2019); IncarNations: African Art as Philosophy, BOZAR Centre for Arts, Belgium (2019); Mask – The Art of Transformation, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019); 6th Daegu Photo Biennale (2018); From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face Picasso, Past and Present, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2018); National Gallery of Victoria Triennial (2017); Deconstructed Spaces, Surveyed Memories, 11th Rencontres de Bamako, Mali (2017); Recent Histories – New African Photography, The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany (2017); Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Seattle Art Museum and other venues (2015-16); New Photography: Ocean of Images, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015); The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, MMK Frankfurt, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC and other venues (2014-15); Journal, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014); NO FLY ZONE, Unlimited Mileage, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2013); Transit, OCA, São Paulo (2013); RAVY Visual Arts Festival, Yaoundé (2012); Future-makers, LVR-LandesMuseum, Bonn (2012); and the 2nd Luanda Triennial (2010).

April 9th 2023, 6 pm
EP11 – Creative Education as a tool for Social Change
Adama Sanneh

Conversation between Adama Sanneh and Mónica de Miranda

In this conversation, Mónica de Miranda, co-founder and artistic director of Hangar, and Adama Sanneh, CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, discuss the roles of creativity and unconventional arts education for processes of social change. Ranging from the projects of the Moleskine Foundation such as AtWork and WikiAfrica Education platform, to ideas about love and community within the arts, this conversation features thoughtful reflections about the development of new forms of education and care within the contemporary world.

This conversation emerges within the scope of the project “Curating as a practice of love” developed by Mónica and Adama which aims to expand on narratives around ecologies of care in the art world, the role of art and curatorial practice as modes of sharing and creative expression in a local yet global context, among others.

Adama Sanneh brings a unique hybrid background in management and cultural studies to his work designing and building innovative organizations able to generate social impact.

Under his leadership as CEO, Moleskine Foundation has been focused on building educational tools and experiences that help foster critical thinking, creative doing, and life- long learning, focusing on youth and underserved communities. His mandate continues with a clear mission for the Foundation: becoming the global leader in the creativity for social change field.

Adama grew up in Monza, Italy, and graduated in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation from the University of Milan. He worked for several years in East Africa on rural development and humanitarian emergency programs and in social innovation with the United Nations. He obtained a Master in Public Management (MPM) from the Bocconi School of Management and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Geneva.

Adama is also part of the advisory board of Ashoka Italia, Brand Counsel member at BrandAfrica, Advisor at OperaFutura, and TEDx speaker, to pursue his commitment to explore and leverage the intersection of business, creativity, culture, and social change to create new and meaningful public value.

October 31st 2023, 6 pm
EP12 – Photo as an ethereal moment of memory
Deborah Willis

Conversation between Deborah Willis and Nithya Iyer.

Deborah Willis, Ph.D, is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, esteemed for her photographic research into Black civil rights in America and acclaimed for her efforts in establishing the black photographic canon. In this conversation with Nithya Iyer, Deborah Willis discusses her discovery of photography as a tool of memory, the importance of beauty as a means of uncovering the fullness of marginalised identities and her ongoing curiosity and love for working with personal archives.

Deborah Willis, Ph.D, is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and has affiliated appointments with the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Social & Cultural and the Institute of Fine Arts where she teaches courses on Photography & Imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. She is also the director of NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture/Institute for African American Affairs. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, contemporary women photographers and beauty.

She received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center, Harvard University; a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and an Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. Fellow. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received awards from the College Art Association for Writing Art History (2021) and the Outstanding Service Award from the Royal Photographic Society in the UK. She has pursued a dual professional career as an art photographer and as one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography and curator of African diasporic cultures.

Willis is the author of The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present; Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty; Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers – 1840 to the Present; Let Your Motto be Resistance – African American Portraits; Family History Memory: Photographs by Deborah Willis; VANDERZEE: The Portraits of James VanDerZee; and co-author of The Black Female Body A Photographic History with Carla Williams; Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery with Barbara Krauthamer; and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs (both titles a NAACP Image Award Winner).

She lectures widely and has co-edited books Women and Migration(s); authored many papers and articles on a range of subjects including The Image of the Black in Western Art, Gordon Parks Life Works, Steidl, Volume II; America’s Lens in Double Exposure: Through the African American Lens; “Photographing Between the Lines: Beauty, Politics and the Poetic Vision of Carrie Mae Weems,” in Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography & Video, and “Malick Sidibé: The Front of the Back View” in Self: Portraiture and Social Identity. Professor Willis is editor of Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography; and Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot”, which received the Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Edited Volume in Women’s Studies by the Popular Culture/American Culture Association in 2011.

Exhibitions of her artwork include: Monument Lab Staying Power, Philadelphia; 100Years/100Women, Park Avenue Armory, In Conversation: Visual Meditations on Black Masculinity, African American Museum Philadelphia; MFON: Black Women Photographers, African American Museum Philadelphia; In Pursuit of Beauty, Express Newark, Rutgers University, Newark, “Mirror Mirror” Express Newark, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ; A Sense of Place, Frick, University of Pittsburgh; Regarding Beauty, University of Wisconsin, Interventions in Printmaking: Three Generations of African-American Women, Allentown Museum of Art; A Family Affair, University of South Florida; I am Going to Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston Museum; Afrique: See you, see me; Progeny: Deborah Willis +Hank Willis Thomas. Gantt Center.

Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include: “Framing Moments in the KIA” Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, Framing Beauty at the Henry Art Gallery; “Reframing Beauty: Intimate Moments” at Indiana University; “Migrations & Meanings in Art” Maryland Institute of the Arts; “Convergence”, Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans; “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,” Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, “Visualizing Emancipation,” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, “Gordon Parks: 100 Moments,” Schomburg Center; “Posing Beauty Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits” at the International Center of Photography and, “Social in Practice: The Art of Collaboration”, Nathan Cummings Foundation.

In addition to making art, writing and teaching, she has served as a consultant to museums, archives, and educational centers. She has appeared and consulted on media projects including the documentary films such as Through A Lens Darkly, Question Bridge: Black Males, a transmedia project, which received the ICP Infinity Award 2015, and American Photography, PBS Documentary. Since 2006 she has co-organized thematic conferences exploring “Black Portraitures” focusing on imaging the black body. She holds honorary degrees from Pratt Institute and the Maryland Institute, College of Art. She is currently researching two projects on photography and the black arts movement and artists reimaging history.

January 28th 2024, 6 pm
EP13 – Cardinal Virtue
Faisal Abdu’Allah

Conversation between Faisal Abdu’Allah and Anca Usurelu

Faisal Abdu’Allah opens the 2024 exhibition cycle at Hangar, with a solo show entitled “Cardinal Virtue”, on display from 20 January to 24 February. In this conversation, he discusses the impact of his upbringing on his artistic path, and the series shown in the exhibition “Cardinal Virtue” – Last Supper (2012) and Prince Hall (2022).

Dr Faisal Abdu’Allah is a Jamaican-British barber and artist best known for his large-scale works that explore the intersectionalities of identity. Abdu’Allah has been exhibited on five continents and has participated in the Torino Biennale, the 55th Venice Biennale, and Aqua Art Miami. Abdu’Allah has collaborated with Sir David Adjaye, Virgil Abloh, choreographer Frank Gatson Jr. and singer Brandy. Abdu’Allah is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including The Joan Mitchell, Mayor of London Award, NEA, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. His works are in the collections of Tate Britain, the V&A Museum, MMoCA (Madison Museum of Contemporary Art) and the Chazen Museum. Abdu’Allah is the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art and Associate Dean for the Arts at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Abdu’Allah stars in the current Netflix documentary The Fade and is represented by Magnolia Editions and Autograph.

March 4th 2024, 6 pm
Season 2 – EP1 – Graffiti Love, Our Roots, and the Birth of an Artist
Fidel Évora

Conversation between Fidel Évora and Bryant Perkins.

On this episode of “Hangar on Art,” visual artist Fidel Evora sits down with guest host Bryant Perkins as the two delve into the methodologies, practices, and theories that underpin artistic creation, as well as the evolution and growth of artistic creators who draw inspiration from their cultural roots.

Fidel Évora, was born in Cidade da Praia in 1984, but grew up in Barreiro. In 2004 he completed the technical course of image and communication at ETIC and in 2008 he took a Master in Motion Graphics at BAU Escola Superior de Disseny in Barcelona. • Between 2004 and 2010 he worked as a Graphic Designer. He seeks to cultivate his taste for research, preservation of artefacts, recovering important memories for collective and personal identity; divided between these borders, he creates compositions between the real and the fictional, treading his own path, creating forgotten dialogues on purpose or unintentionally.
In 2011 he integrated his first group exhibition abroad • “After the Utopia a view on the Portuguese FreedomxDay” Acquire Arts Gallery London curated by Plasticina. • 2016 group exhibition Glocal Wozen Lisbon • 2018 group exhibition Alter Ego Macau. • 2020 Live performance Schubert – Winter Trip curated by Boca do Lobo. • Since 2008 he has been part of the New York based collective Antagonist Movement (which included until his death Arturo Vega creative director Ramones). • 2011 Participated in the documentary The Dolls of Lisbon by Ethan H. Minsker. • 2021 Group show Ephemeral Ethernal – NFT group show. • 2021 Group show Linha Imaginária – MU.SA Museu de Artes de Sintra. • 2021 Group show “de Dentro e Fora” – Colectiva de Artistas de Cabo Verde – UCCLA Lisboa. • 2022 Solo show “OXI DRETU, MANHAM MARIADU” – MOVART Lisboa • 2022 Group show “Interferências” – MAAT – Lisbon. • 2022 Artist Residency Idem Paris. 2024 Group show “LIBERDADE – Curated by João Pinharanda

March 15th 2024, 6 pm
Season 2 – EP2 – A Picture is Worth 1000 Perspectives
Jabulani Maseko

Conversation between Jabulani Maseko and Bryant Perkins.

In this most recent installment of “Hangar on Art,” visual artist Jabulani Maseko joins guest host Bryant Perkins to delve into the influence of ethnicity, oppression, culture, and racial identity on reshaping and inspiring the artistic creative process.

Jabulani Maseko (b.1977) is a South African-born contemporary artist working in a Postdisciplinary approach to interrogate the histories that unfold in the modern world.

He is concerned with the macro which impacts his daily work on the rural landscape which he has assumed stewardship over in Portugal where he lives. His practice concerns itself with questions around identity, self-determination, and equity. Through a studio-based practice which encompasses drawing, sculpture, painting, and photography he puts to work everyday objects to highlight the long-established codes which colour our understanding. His performance work plays on the nuances inherent in language and the socio-political dynamic. He listens and watches, creating work which compels us to examine the complexities of the contemporary experience. His body enters the frame to leave the artist’s print on the work. “The body as a tool. The body as a weapon. The body as an instrument.”

Since 2021 Jabulani has been the co-founder and creative director of the Bienial of Contemporary Culture `A Dobradiça – Encontros Contemporaneos` in the village of Maçao, Portugal. Over two editions the biennial has presented the works of 14 artists from 9 different nationalities.

Jabulani has exhibited his work widely in Europe, Africa and North America, with works held in both private and public collections.

Jabulani holds a BA from The University of The West of England and completed his MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.

Jabulani Maseko and his family divide their home between Portugal and the UK.

March 22th 2024, 6 pm
Season 2 – EP3 – Creating Art from Your Roots and the Next Generation of Artists from the Global South
Conversation between Sara Fonseca da Graça and Bryant Perkins.

Sara Fonseca da Graça joins guest host Bryant Perkins from Up From Art to discuss how her cultural background enriches her creativity and motivates her to mentor aspiring artists from the Global South.

Sara Fonseca da Graça | Petra.Preta b. 1992, Almada. Transdisciplinary artist with a degree in Acting from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema. Through a fusion of artistic practices, she navigates liminal spaces between fiction and biography, seeking to map healing processes.

With an artwork made up of illustrations, paintings and texts that give rise to books, become installations and are transformed into performances, the disciplinary crossover serves as a reflection of the intersectionalities that run through her experience and as a vehicle for transforming languages and creating safe imaginaries.

August 17th 2024, 6 pm
Season 2 – EP3 – Melissa Rodrigues: Immersive Art and Activism Beyond Portugal
Conversation between Melissa Rodrigues and Bryant Perkins.

MELISSA RODRIGUES (Praia, Cape Verde) is a visual artist, curator, programmer and art educator. Graduated in Anthropology UNL/FCSH and postgraduate in Performance from FBAUP. As a researcher in the areas of Performance and Visual Culture, she has developed research in Image and Representation of the Black Body and Afrodiasporic Black Subjectivities.
Develops visual arts curation projects in independent spaces and in partnership with cultural institutions.
As a visual artist, she has presented her work in collective and individual exhibitions, conferences and interdisciplinary meetings.
She also collaborates with museums, exhibition spaces and visual arts and cinema programming in the curation, coordination and promotion of educational projects.
Melissa is a Speech Programmer at TBA – Teatro do Bairro Alto in Lisbon. She is one of the founding artists of UNA – União Negra das Artes.
Co-created the Arquipélago project of art and affective food.