Mónica de Miranda

The exhibition Weaving Landscapes weaves together key thematic strands in the work of Mónica de Miranda: on one hand, the series Archipelago and Like a Candle in the Wind, and on the other, Tomorrow is Another Day, Twins, and Panorama. Rather than being presented as distinct, separate themes, they reflect the fluidity that characterizes the artist's creative process. These thematic axes interlace questions of identity, struggle, reappropriation, and bodily visibility, with land as a symbolic stage for resistance and the construction of identity. The body is the central theme that runs through the different layers of her work, offering a complex narrative about tensions between past and present, the visible and the invisible, and collective and individual histories.

In the series Archipelago and Like a Candle in the Wind, the artist uses the island as a metaphor to explore the fragmentation and reconstruction of identities that emerge from diasporic processes. The island is portrayed in Western culture as an isolated place, a frontier between the known and the unknown, often represented as a wild and exotic location where one can escape civilization. In the artist’s work, the island is not only a physical territory but also a space of reconnection, used by the artist to question dynamics of identity and belonging. The works in Like a Candle in the Wind are intervened with wax and pigments, enriching their texture and color and alluding to the need for preservation—not only of the soil as matrix but also of the relationship between memory and history.

In the series Panorama and Tomorrow is Another Day, Mónica de Miranda reflects on how urban space and architectural structures are marked by political struggle and the search for identity. In the first series, Babel Tower, the artist depicts the Tour de l’Échanger, an architectural project embedded within political codes and narratives defined by systems of thought grounded in the idea of art as a tool for social transformation. In the second series, buildings of Angolan modernist architecture—symbols of colonial privilege—become testimonies of the complex dynamics of power and oppression. The artist interrogates the narratives shaped by architecture, questioning how these structures function as symbols of colonial power, the struggle for independence, and, today, of gentrification. She challenges us to consider how we photograph history, how narratives are constructed, and how architectural style testifies to the reality of ruin, reflecting on power and positionality.

In the series Springboard, Mónica de Miranda photographs an abandoned public swimming pool. Once built for the enjoyment of the colonial bourgeoisie, it is now reused by peripheral communities. The pool, initially a space of exclusion, is today repurposed for storage and the production of construction materials. By capturing these images, the artist questions the dynamics of land ownership and use, suggesting that the land, although often neglected or abandoned, remains a contested ground where belonging and identity are constantly redefined.

The film Path to the Stars narrates the fictional journey of a former combatant in Angola’s liberation struggle as she travels by boat along the banks of the Kwanza River, the birthplace of the Ndongo kingdom—a pre-colonial African state tributary to the Kingdom of Kongo, created by subgroups of the Ambundu and led by the king Ngola. The protagonist follows a feminist, reivindicative purpose, encountering figures such as an elderly woman, a child, an astronaut, and soldiers attempting to read her future in the lines of an astral map of Angola. Themes such as the desire for belonging, the duality of future and present, and the relationship with the land—recurring themes in the artist’s work—are also present in this piece.

Thus, Weaving Landscapes proposes a continuous re-evaluation of history, space, and identity, presenting works that trace a poetic narrative of resistance, reappropriation, and transformation.