The creation of a memorial on slavery was one of the winning projects of the Lisbon Participatory Budget 2017/2018, following which a contest was launched by the City Hall, and Kiluanji Kia Henda's proposal won in March this year.
"There is some delay due to the covid-19 pandemic situation, but the work continues. We already have the prototype of a sugar cane that is being held in Porto by a Portuguese company. Then it will be the production phase, and then the engineering one. The expectation is that the memorial will be concluded at the end of the first quarter of 2021", said the artist about the progress of the project, in an interview to the Lusa agency.
Kiluanji Kia Henda has conceived a plantation with 540 sugar cane, each four meters high, in black lacquered aluminum, placed in a painted area in the same color - in Campo das Cebolas - flanked by concrete benches in a circle, where visitors can sit "to contemplate and reflect, or to present cultural events".
"The memorial symbolically represents a mourning plantation for the victims of slavery. It will be a metal plantation, sterile, with a vertical reading, which takes us back to a tragic past, but also to a prosperous future," described the artist, born in Luanda in 1979, who in 2017 won the Frieze Prize at the London art fair.
For the Angolan creator, this monument has multiple dimensions: "It has in it grief and pain, but also points to hope in better days. There is pain and tragedy in it, but there is also an open door to a better future".
The Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda considers that the "reconciliation with the past" of slavery in the Portuguese colonial empire "can only happen if the mistakes" of this "tragic historical period", which goes back to the time of the discoveries, are recognized first.
Asked about the reaction he expects from visitors to the memorial, and about the security of the monument at a time when racism has been the subject of debate in Portugal and abroad due to the action of extreme right-wing movements, Kiluanji Kia Henda says he is aware that "racial tension has increased more and more.
"The demonstration of racial hatred has unfortunately manifested itself more frequently. The memorial, being public art, is likely to be vandalized. But by then it will no longer be mine, it will belong to the city of Lisbon," he declared.
Henda has been researching the themes of colonial memory and global movements of immigrants. He usually uses photography, video, installation and 'performance' in his works, presented in Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Angola, the United States, Australia and China.
For the Angolan artist, "the most important thing is to make people aware of that part of Portugal's history, so as not to fall into collective amnesia. It is up to the Portuguese State to protect this memory, and to raise people's awareness so that the monument is respected".
"The memorial will confront us with a tragic and catastrophic historical period that cannot fall into silence," the 41-year-old artist admitted, suggesting that other public initiatives should move forward to shed light on the past, particularly the content of textbooks, "because the Portuguese were directly involved in the slave trade, and it must be said and written clearly that it was wrong.
"You can't pretend that nothing happened. Portugal must confront its history and put an end to omissions and subterfuge on this issue, elevating feelings of love to others and respect," he appealed, stressing that the work he is doing with the monument "is symbolic" and, as an artist, he lent himself to thinking and creating a project "that could unite a purpose of reflection and meditation.
For Kiluanji, being chosen to carry out this project "was a joy, but also [is] a great responsibility" to create a memorial "of this dimension": "It's a very heavy responsibility, because I know it will have an impact on society when it is realized," he said, adding that "being an artist is an act of courage.
Still on slavery and its victims - the theme of the monument - the Angolan artist points out that this process linked to the past, has nothing to do with guilt: "What is asked is empathy and reflection because human trafficking continues to exist today, throughout the world, even in Europe itself," he warned.
"Plantation - Prosperity and Nightmare" was created as an "invitation to reflection" in a space that reproduces the economic activity of sugar cane production, which was even called "white gold" - a luxurious commodity, five centuries ago, originating from South Asia, which the Discoveries consecrated as a commodity, in a global market.
Plantations, companies, warehouses, refineries, warehouses and stores were created in various parts of the world, in a network fed by active trade routes between the 16th and 19th centuries, based on slave labour, which became widespread in the Portuguese empire and was only abolished at the beginning of the 19th century.
For the creation of the memorial project in Lisbon, in the space rehabilitated by the architect João Carrilho da Graça, the municipal authorities have already announced a budget of between 150,000 and 180,000 euros for the realization, but "only with the realization of the prototype will it be possible to have an idea of how much it will cost," he told Lusa Kiluanji Kia Henda that, in the competition for the project, he was ahead of the proposals of two other artists of African descent, Grada Kilomba and Jaime Laureano.
As for the previously announced Memorial Interpretation Center, the artist indicated that "it is planned, but should be created at a later stage", still to be planned.
Kiluanji Kia Henda was awarded in 2012 with the National Prize of Art and Culture of the Ministry of Culture of Angola.
