1. Introduction: Reinterpreting Portuguese Colonial Archives as a Form of Reparation

During the "Summer School in Communication and Culture for Development"¹, held at the University of Minho in 2020, the researchers who conducted this interview were engaged in the project Cultures, Past & Present (2018-2022). Specifically, their focus was on understanding the history, memory, and narratives surrounding ethnology museums in Portugal and Mozambique. Margot Dias' groundbreaking contributions in integrating ethnographic film into studies with the Makonde people of Mozambique naturally emerged as a central aspect of the research, connected with Jorge Dias' major role in establishing the Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon. As the research progressed, two researchers and artists emerged who had significant engagement with the Dias couple's ethnographic missions, particularly focusing on Margot's role, albeit with very different approaches: anthropologist and filmmaker Catarina Alves Costa², a professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at Nova University of Lisbon, and artist Ângela Ferreira, a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon. The exploratory study into Ângela Ferreira's artistic career soon highlighted the importance of engaging with this creator. It was within this context that the interview presented here was conducted, spanning two sessions on November 12 and 19, 2020, yet retaining the relevance of the themes and issues discussed. In fact, these topics and concerns are very much on the agenda, especially considering the recent momentum given to the debate on historical reparations in Portugal after the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, expressed his endorsement for such reparations to the former colonies during a meeting with foreign journalists on April 23, 2024.

After embarking on a journey that some authors (e.g., ^{Marmeleira, 2015}; ^{Ribeiro, 2020}) have characterised as solitary and misunderstood for over two decades, Ângela Ferreira exhibited the installation A Tendency to Forget in 2015 (Figure 1). It was the culmination of an extensive research project that would form the basis of her doctoral thesis³, defended the following year. A Tendency to Forget is an in situ installation featuring a large-scale sculptural structure whose architecture evokes the imposing building of the former Ministry of Overseas Territories, flanked by seven photographs depicting that same building or the neighbouring building of the National Museum of Ethnology. A spiral staircase invites the public to climb up from the floor to the interior of the sculptural structure, where a mini-auditorium awaits them and where they can watch the film Adventures in Mozambique and the Portuguese Tendency to Forget⁴ (2015, 00:19:00).

From “A Tendency to Forget”, by Ângela Ferreira, 2015. (https://angelaferreira.info/?p=249). Credits. Jorge Silva

Figure 1: Detail view of the photos 

While on the one hand, the viewer is symbolically guided into “the belly of the beast"⁵, on the other, they are given the role of observer, witnessing a collection of images and discourses. These elements artfully articulated after extensive research in various colonial archives, unveil the dark side of the ethnographic missions undertaken by Jorge and Margot Dias between 1957 and 1961⁶ with the Makonde of Mozambique. To achieve this, the artist juxtaposes images that document two contrasting realities in the then-Portuguese colony during the 1950s and 1960s: the lifestyle of the settlers, who enjoyed a hedonistic existence while upholding the empire, and that of the Makonde, who strove to preserve their traditional way of life and became involved in the starting movements that would become the armed struggle against colonialism. It is worth noting that the archive images used by Ângela Ferreira were re-filmed from the small-screen presentation of the nostalgic documentary Moçambique: No Outro Lado do Tempo (Mozambique: On the Other Side of Time; 1997, 00:58:00), featuring readings from excerpts of Margot Dias' diaries during the missions. Additionally, the footage was sourced from the DVD collection Margot Dias: Filmes Etnográficos 1958-1961 (Margot Dias: Ethnographic Films 1958-1961; ^{Dias, 2016}), which includes readings from excerpts of Jorge Dias' reports submitted to the Mission for the Study of Ethnic Minorities in Portuguese Overseas Territories.

When examining contemporary artistic practices that contribute critically to the decolonisation of knowledge through research in colonial archives, ^{Oliveira (2016}) outlines three essential characteristics: primarily relying on image archives while also incorporating other archival sources; imbuing the artwork with "archival quality" (p. 108), thereby integrating displaced archive content for appropriation and incorporation; and altering the aesthetic qualities of this archival content through the subversion introduced by artistic creation, resulting in significant ethical-political implications for the decolonisation of our interpretation of the colonial past. In fact, Ângela Ferreira employs both image and written archives, carefully selecting, displacing, and integrating certain contents into her work. This rearrangement reveals the duplicity and ambiguity of the intentions underlying Jorge and Margot Dias' scientific missions. In doing so, the artist materialises her radical critique of Portugal's colonial past. She clarifies that, through the proposal of "an 'expanded' sculptural language" (^{Ferreira, 2016}, p. 79), she intends to analyse the conceptual intersections that can enable an understanding of "the shortcomings of the postcolonial critical discourse in the national context" (p. 113), rather than merely denouncing them.

On the other hand, we should emphasise Ângela Ferreira's use of images and writings predominantly produced by the Dias couple in Adventures in Mozambique, validating the notion defended by ^{Derrida (1996}) that "the archive always works, and a priori, against itself" (pp. 11-12). It is through the meticulous juxtaposition of images and selected testimonies that showcases the artist's narrative imprint (^{Benjamin, 1936/1987}), and a version of events surfaces that counters that of Jorge and Margot Dias. That is the purpose of ^{Ângela Ferreira (2016}) when she says: "using them in a work of art would do nothing more than unveil them and circulate them again, running the risk of repeating the disregard and ethical lapses committed by the authors [Jorge and Margot Dias; of the ethnographic campaigns" (p. 171). Thus, the artist presents her critique of Jorge and Margot Dias's work and the persistence of the Portuguese colonial presence in Mozambique at the time of African nations' independence not through the simple use of the ethnologist couple's archives but rather through the transformation brought about by the artistic creation of these materials, as mentioned above based on ^{Oliveira's (2016}) proposal. Along the lines of ^{Derrida (1996}), albeit with a contrasting and complementary perspective, it will be interesting to explore how the archival materials bequeathed by the Dias couple retrospectively undermine their authors and the colonial system in which they were produced within the narrative of Adventures in Mozambique. As a conjecture, it is suggested that Ângela Ferreira's creative choices, through which these materials are critically rearranged, constitute an act of reparation in A Tendency to Forget.

In this manner, through this installation, Ângela amplifies the debate on the erasure of colonial memory and the reluctance to make historical reparations in Portugal within the realm of contemporary art, which gained considerable traction following the artwork's recognition with the 11th edition of the Novo Banco Photo⁷ award in 2015. Subsequently, A Tendency to Forget garnered increasing attention from the media and the public, both domestically and internationally. In 2016, Adventures in Mozambique was acquired by Tate Modern and received the Loop Fair Acquisition Award⁸, reinforcing international recognition of the intrinsic value of this filmic object in particular and the innovation of the device materialised in the installation overall. Prior to this, the artist had already produced other works addressing colonial memory and historical reparations, including the installation Amnesia⁹. Nonetheless, it is within A Tendency to Forget that, according to the artist herself, the approach to this theme becomes more assertive. Ângela Ferreira's juxtaposition of the two works allows us to understand that the semantic interplay between the words that title them is inextricably linked to the dialectics of memory and forgetting. Even so, while Amnesia provides viewers with ample room for manoeuvre, potentially diverging from the artist's intent, A Tendency to Forget leaves no room for ambiguity regarding her critical stance.

Reflecting on the reception and evolution of postcolonialism in Portugal, ^{Ribeiro (2020}) observed that Ângela Ferreira emerged as a trailblazer in initiating this discourse in the late 1990s, presenting provocative works addressing Portugal's colonial legacy, which remained "still 'unclassifiable' ( ... ) [in] a time between mourning and trauma, silence and narrative crisis, a time as tentative as all beginnings" (p. 132). For this reason, the significance of the artist's work lies in its capacity to incite "critical reflection on the Portuguese colonial past and its end, in a comparative and cosmopolitan dimension" (p. 132).

Born in what was then Lourenço Marques in 1958, Ângela Ferreira grew up in the city's late-colonial environment and travelled to South Africa during her teenage years. Spending the early years of her adult life there, she earned a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Cape Town. The artist signals her "hybrid identity, a simultaneous condition of 'outsider' and 'insider' that combines the voice of the 'I' and the voice of the Other, European and African, thus enabling a critical and incisive approach to the contexts addressed - Portugal, Mozambique, South Africa" (^{Ferreira, 2016}, p. 81). This identity of the artist had previously inspired the comment by ^{Sandqvist (2007}): "[Ângela Ferreira] uses her art like a wide-angle lens" (p. 21), suggesting a broad perspective that intersects her aesthetic creation with her political experience. This wide-angle lens of Ângela Ferreira's art embodies her "sensibility of the world", a concept proposed by ^{Mignolo (2017}) to unblock the sensory fields not allowed by the "vision of the world", which he considers restrictive and rooted in Western epistemologies. In essence, through her work, the artist uses various sources and multiple languages to translate her identity as an African of European descent who navigated through colonialism in Mozambique and apartheid in South Africa. As a witness to the impacts caused by both regimes, Ângela Ferreira sheds light on what she views as disrespectful actions committed by the Dias couple against the Makonde people in A Tendency to Forget. These actions include the ethnologists' mindset and behaviour, which were in many ways ethnocentric, the unauthorised capture of intimate images of the community members, and the dual intention of studying while also observing and spying, as evidenced in the testimonies presented in Adventures in Mozambique. By questioning these practices and, in the artist's own words, the association between conceptual pertinence and political-social pertinence (^{Ferreira, 2016}), A Tendency to Forget forcefully challenges the colonial past while simultaneously seeking to repair its wrongs.

Historical reparations have sparked heated controversy in societies currently grappling with the enduring legacies of European colonialism. Rooted in postcolonial thought, notable for the contributions of intellectuals like ^{Edward Said (1993/2011}), ^{Homi Bhabha (1994/1998}), and Gayatri Chakravorty ^{Spivak (1999}), the debate around reparations seeks to deepen critical awareness of the atrocities committed in the past inflicted against those who were not allowed to tell their side of the story. At the very dawn of postcolonialism, ^{Said (1993/2011}) emphasised the perpetuation of dominant narratives through the obliteration of other narratives describing the experience of oppression. ^{Bhabha (1994/1998}) noted that this obliteration was embodied by a discursive strategy based on stereotypes and discrimination inherited from colonial discourse to the ideological construction of otherness. Meanwhile, ^{Spivak (1999}) advocated for the adoption of subtler strategies to recode the margin as the place of the subaltern subject. According to her perspective, establishing a line of communication between this subject and the citizenship circuit should mobilise the subaltern towards hegemony. Thus, their integration into the electoral system, or the inclusion of elements of their culture in curricula, strategically excluded them from organised resistance. The author contends that only constructive complicity between master narratives and the narratives of the subaltern could configure the possibility of an ethical relationship between the former coloniser and the former colonised. However, ^{Marc Ferro (1981/2004}) challenged this notion. The French historian stated that the study of the past inherently acknowledges a fundamental assumption: the idea that there is no historical truth valid for everyone. On the other hand, ^{Eric Hobsbawm (2012/2014}) argued that historical memory is not merely the study of the past but rather a reflection of the present's interpretation of that same past. In a synthesis of these perspectives, ^{Sanches (2011}) proposed that "the postcolonial condition lives from a fresh perspective on both the past and the present, encouraging an alternative and an uncomfortable revisitation" (p. 8).

In a framework where artistic discourse endeavours to engage in the discourse of "post-postcolonialism”, Ângela Ferreira seeks to create, in A Tendency to Forget, an innovative device that presents the artist's distinct critical narrative, which overtly challenges the dominance of the White European to the subjugation of the Black African. By shedding light on the ethical-political implications of this injustice committed in the colonial past, the work ultimately embodies the reparation that is possible in the present. Thus, it is not surprising that Helena ^{Pereira (2023}), curator of the Zet Gallery in Braga, referred to Ângela Ferreira's work as "a kind of reparation of history" (para. 1).

Critical reflection on historical reparations is evident across the scientific, artistic, political and media spheres. It is a controversial subject, with different actors presenting diverse, sometimes even contradictory, perspectives. Yet to reach full maturity, this debate marked by an uncertain outcome has been a motto for international political meetings, such as the "Reparations Conference", held from November 13 to 17, 2023, in Accra, Ghana, aimed at drawing up an agenda regarding reparations for the injustices inflicted upon Africa and Africans. Moreover, it has garnered significant media attention, featuring in numerous reports, interviews, and opinion pieces. As an example, the latest episode of the podcast series Pretérito Imperfeito (Past Imperfect; https://expresso.pt/podcasts/preterito-imperfeito/), produced by Expresso and SIC in the summer of 2023, is titled “Reparações Históricas” (Historical Reparations; August 28, 2023). Following the controversial statements by the Portuguese President mentioned above, the debate on this issue has recently reignited in both the media and the public sphere, exposing the divisions and disparities it evokes within Portuguese society. Actively engaged in this discourse, Ângela Ferreira conveyed to the media on April 28, 2024: "the crux of the problem lies in our failure to address the decolonisation of our minds and our society" (^{Colonialismo Português Foi Projeto de Opressão e Submissão de Muitos Povos, 2024}).

Assuming that the archival materials on the Makonde people produced by Jorge and Margot Dias are part of the "colonial library" referred by ^{Mbembe (2013/2014,} p. 166)¹⁰, Ângela ^{Ferreira (2016}) envisioned them as fertile ground for critical exploration through A Tendency to Forget. The artist's reinterpretation of these materials, achieved through the creative process, entails a critical and contrapuntal examination of both the materials themselves and the colonial past as explored in the work under analysis. To further explore these and other previously discussed topics, we will now give the floor to Ângela Ferreira.

2. Assuming the Freedom to Turn "the Camera and the Spotlight Against Them"

Interviewers (I): A Tendency to Forget (Figure 2) was arguably the most widely recognised work of your artistic career. What was it like to conceive and develop this project?

From “A Tendency to Forget”, by Ângela Ferreira, 2015. (https://angelaferreira.info/?p=249). Credits. Jorge Silva

Figure 2: Exterior perspective of A Tendency to Forget 

Ângela Ferreira (AF): I must say that this was an extremely emotional and convulsive work for me. I worked on this project for five years. It was very costly, but it was also very meticulous: step by step... It also involved some discomfort because it was the first time I had made a political-critical incursion into a Portuguese scholar [Jorge Dias]. I am also a scholar and a career professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon for many years. So, I am committed to Portuguese academia, which needs to be revisited and criticised from many points of view. It was also an incursion with anthropologists and ethnographers who felt very affected by my work and who literally tried to discredit it. When the work was complete, I was so attacked and vilified that I was quite traumatised. Then, I won the award, and time went by. People from abroad started coming to see the artwork. The film [Adventures in Mozambique and the Portuguese Tendency to Forget, which is part of the installation] also won an award in Barcelona at the "LOOP Art Fair", and, at that point, the work began to settle in my spirit. Looking back, I feel it was hard, I feel it was complex, but I still think it was well worth taking that step.

I: In an interview you gave to ^{Laboratório de Curadoria (2017}), you were asked about how you revisit your works. You replied: "many of my projects continue because I think the person wants to say the thing again, but to say it in a different manner, to say it better". Is that the case with A Tendency to Forget?

AF: Not in the case of A Tendency [to Forget]. It's a work that I have absolutely no intention of changing. If you ask me, "what do you think you did wrong?", there's probably a lot I did wrong, but it's very unlikely that I'll revisit this work. Now, if you ask me if I think about Margot and Jorge Dias, and that system, and what they represented... Ah! I think about that, and I think about that a lot...

I: And in what terms do you think of the Dias couple?

AF: Their story is very complex. They were closely linked to the history of the country and the history of the National Museum of Ethnology. My thesis is hard on Jorge Dias and Margot Dias. Particularly towards her, for different reasons, but I do not regret it at all. Margot was enigmatic... A fascinating and interesting figure. None of us are simple people: good people aren't simple people, and bad people aren't simple people. We are all complex and multifaceted, and Margot is an example of that. She studied music in Germany and apparently had some quality as a performer.When she came to Portugal with Jorge, before they got involved in the Mozambique campaigns, she had already pursued studies in musicology. As for Jorge Dias... To all intents and purposes, within the context of his time, Jorge Dias was a progressive person. For example, a friend of mine who is also an ethnographer, Zé Tó Fernandes Dias¹¹, was a student of his. Jorge [Dias] supervised Zé Tó's master's thesis, which was about gay bars in Lisbon. From his viewpoint, Jorge was the only person in the entire faculty who could have supported him. He died just as he was about to hand in his thesis and supported him to the end. We're talking about the early 1970s. Then, as Jorge Dias was no longer here, Zé Tó got a bad grade. To this day, he argues that if Jorge hadn't died, he would have gotten a good grade for his master's degree. So, we mustn't forget that he wasn't a colonial fascist at heart within the context of Portugal, which was a uncoloured and fascist country... A country under a dictatorship and with a very strong colonial system at that time. Colonial doubts only began to set in during the Colonial War. Until then, the vast majority of the Portuguese population was either unconcerned or adhered to the colonial project. When I started studying them, I was very interested in the time they spent in Germany, as Margot claimed that was she who fell in love with ethnography. In a way, you get the idea that she was who got Jorge Dias interested [in this area of study].

I: Through reading Atlantis journal¹²...

AF: And, obviously, reading the Atlantis journal would have developed her interest in photography and cinematography. One of the arguments I put forth in my thesis, and I have no doubt about this, is that she was thinking about...

I: Leni Riefenstahl¹³...

AF: Yes. For me, there's no doubt about it. I've been studying and discussing Leni Riefenstahl since I was 20. It would not be possible, both being in Germany during World War II, Margot reading that journal, being interested in cinema and not watching the films of Leni Riefenstahl, who was a star. No one can convince me that Margot didn't have a role model. This idea, in my thesis, is conjecture. I'm the one who constructs it. Imagine that you were in Germany, in Munich, until 1944. The city was completely devastated. It was being bombed every day. Your Jewish university classmates had already gone to the concentration camps. And you leave and pretend that there was no war?!?! It's not possible. They were two intelligent individuals... The fact that they never mentioned the war could only have been a mutual agreement between them. There's something suspicious about that silence, to say the least. I've lived through the Colonial War, I've lived through apartheid. What I'm saying is that this omission is strange. So Jorge and Margot Dias left me this room for manoeuvre, and I used it. I think that anyone, as a scholar, is free to make these associations. We like to have concrete evidence, but we also know that people's lives are complex and intertwined at many points. The position they took, supposedly neutral, was completely lunatic. Only in Portugal, ruled by a Salazar who also swept everything under the carpet, was this possible. How could nobody have asked them: "so, you... What were you doing there in Munich in 1944?".

I: They could not be apolitical, in the sense that they positioned themselves...

AF: For me, it was completely impossible. Even though they constantly claimed that their project wasn't political, they were sufficiently aware of the political significance of what they were doing... Which was being spies! They weren't the only ones. The entire field of ethnography during colonial times did this. At that time, that's all ethnography was good for. Colonial governments poured money into ethnographic projects, and not just here. The British did it. It happened in Brazil, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Anyway, the French did it too. In Jorge Dias' reports, which are available for consultation at the Torre do Tombo [National Archive], you can see that in almost all of them, he begins by saying: "well, I know I shouldn't be meddling in politics, but it's hard to separate our ethnographic study from the social and political problems that are unfolding in the region". You can tell that Jorge Dias is constantly defending himself so as not to get into trouble. But he couldn't fully defend himself because he was being paid by Adriano Moreira, who was the minister of Overseas Territories, and he had to present work.

I: How did you come across Margot Dias' ethnographic films?

AF: I came across Margot's ethnographic films through Jean Rouch¹⁴. I only realised what they represented later, as my research progressed and, above all, when I started watching the films. At first, I did not even know that the field diaries [of Jorge and Margot Dias]¹⁵ existed, but I already suspected that there was something hidden. In the meantime, Harry West¹⁶ brought me the piles of photographs he had, and we looked through them together. That's when Harry mentioned something that [Margot] had kept in a drawer... Which [she] did not want to open because she had already been warned that it would politicise the issue.

I: We realise that there is an obvious repercussion of the work done under Margot Dias's name in A Tendency to Forget. How is it possible, hypothetically, to verify this authorship?

AF: That's an interesting and complex question. It certainly wasn't the first question I asked myself when I started A Tendency to Forget, but it was very present in my analysis of her work. There you have the story of a woman who comes from Munich, from Nazi Germany. She leaves Lisbon and goes to the Makonde plateau, crossing colonial Lourenço Marques, Johannesburg and onward to Tanzania. It's an incredible story that begins before World War II and lasts until the 1960s when the [Colonial] War broke out. Margot was never regarded by her peers or by Jorge Dias as an equal. There is a hierarchical difference there. She, for example, gives her name to the films, but the films have never had any public repercussions until today. The truth is that Jorge Dias didn't dare to include her. The work she did as a cinematographer (Figure 3)... He couldn't find a way to include it in his books¹⁷, which are his crowning glory. That has a lot to do with your question of authorship. To what extent does she allow and accept that or not? I don't know.

Jorge Dias (1958). Archives of the National Museum of Ethnology

Figure 3: Margot Dias filming a kanyembe player in the village of Miteda (1958) 

I: Why didn't she ever return to Mozambique after 1973?

AF: Yes, that complete withdrawal is very strange. Not only did she never go back to Mozambique, she never filmed those subjects again, and she wasn't even very willing to talk about them. Margot was defending herself against something that she obviously knew was wrong. She knew that what she had in her drawer was politically explosive, and when you know that you also understand why it's explosive. For me, there are a lot of unknowns... For example, it's not clear whether she needed the money when she sold the diaries to the Portuguese State.

I: The last time she went to the plateau, in 1961, Margot Dias went alone...

AF: It was after the Mueda massacre¹⁸, and there was nothing left to do. Although I always say that [Margot] was a very controversial figure, my assessment of the character Margot Dias is negative. I think she did many things wrong, and her complexity doesn't erase my condemnation of some of the projects she was involved in. She didn't ask permission to do what she did. Jorge and Margot Dias' team didn't have the reflexive sense we have today. They didn't have the modesty of voyeurism that the researchers who worked after them have since acquired.

I: The words "voyeur" and "voyeurism" are also related to A Tendency to Forget. The Dias couple somehow didn't want to see the reality of their time. Conversely, you choose the voyeur as the driver of her work. Is this to allow the return of the gaze¹⁹?

AF: Absolutely. As I see it, they looked shamelessly, without asking permission, and I exercise my freedom to do the same: I turn the camera and the spotlight on them. That's all I did, and, of course, I did it because I had tools: I lived in South Africa, where I had to grapple with the idea of making political art, selling art to politicians, being engaged with politics and allowing myself, to a certain extent, to be appropriated by the system. These discourses are part of my artistic DNA. If there is a political comment being made in A Tendency to Forget, and if there is an authorial comment about reflexivity or lack of it, from Margot and Jorge Dias' point of view, this is very much articulated in the film [Adventures in Mozambique].

I: Is that why you juxtaposed images from Moçambique: No Outro Lado do Tempo with footage from Margot Dias' ethnographic films in this film?

AF: I knew I was going to use segments of her footage, but I wanted to find something that was... As if the camera had turned against them. I spent a lot of time watching the films very closely. I watched the films of male and female initiations very carefully.

I: Which are quite controversial...

AF: Very controversial... I had already brought, from South Africa, very complex critical tools for this. I am African, but when I travel to Niger to take photographs or to Brazzaville, I don't go alone. Besides being dangerous, there are complexities in these countries. It's not like going to Berlin, Paris or London with a camera and taking some pictures. So I knew Margot wasn't filming those things alone.

I: So you assume that men were also present during the footage of the women's initiation rites?

AF: They were accompanied by the Chief of Post, who represented the Portuguese Colonial Administration, by the Black Mozambicans who sold themselves to the colonial Government - who, of course, played the role of policemen, received a salary, and were hated by the rest of the population - and by her husband, Jorge Dias. In fact, if you watch the films very carefully, Jorge appears in the image now and then.

I: He appears dressed as an explorer...

AF: Always clad in those khaki-coloured clothes. And you see what he's doing... He and the local administrator are directing the people: "now everyone gather there", "now everyone get out of there", "now get over there", "now get out of the picture". From time to time, Margot picks up on these details. I searched a lot for those images in which you could glimpse Jorge Dias and the administrator entering the scene. She shouldn't have wanted to; she shouldn't have caught them, but she did. That's what she unintentionally filmed, and that said much more about her than the entire process.

I: It's the hidden camera...

AF: They were a whole team: one woman, seven men, two jeeps, two guns and a film camera. They didn't walk around without guns. It wasn't like the neighbour around the corner was going to buy milk. It was an event in the village, even quite intimidating. To what extent did she impose herself? That's how I use the word “voyeur”. So, that was the kind of thing I was keen on understanding.

I: There are some extracts in which Margot says: "speak once more". She somehow directs the filming itself.

AF: And you can also see that she went to the same places several times. Rafael Mwakala²⁰ was with her.

I: Rafael Mwakala, the interpreter with Jorge Dias' team, was affiliated with Frelimo [Mozambique Liberation Front]...

AF: Yes, Rafael Mwakala was affiliated with Frelimo... Margot eventually gets to know the women, and you realise that they already have a relationship. It wasn't a military imposition. It wasn't a war thing. There was a soft approach because, after all, they are ethnographers. So, the idea was to get to know how other people live. But when you take seven men and two jeeps, it's difficult to get to know how the others live because the others are very aware that you're looking at them.

I: You use a very interesting expression, which is "the belly of the beast". Was the installation A Tendency to Forget designed to allow people to enter "the belly of the beast"?

AF: And see again as if they were voyeurs... The observer is involved in the same action (Figure 4). Margot was a settler. That's what she was.

From “A Tendency to Forget”, by Ângela Ferreira, 2015. (https://angelaferreira.info/?p=249). Credits. Jorge Silva

Figure 4: Detailed view of the interior of the installation (and a visitor watching the film) 

I: How do you rate the visitors' experience as voyeurs?

AF: I think the film included in A Tendency to Forget is very challenging. The viewer watches the departure from Lisbon, the flight over Seville... And then is caught up in a very colonial and even offensive discourse: "ah! We've arrived in Kano. Let me see if the Blacks have a different head shape to the Whites". Later on, they tell stories of the colonial doctor who didn't want to help the woman give birth, and the child died in the mother's belly. It's pretty disturbing stuff. Even though it's an unpleasant film to watch, people still say to me today: "wow. Very impactful". And if you don't see the film, you'll never realise how penetrating it is. You have that very sculptural vision of an object. The architecture is very modernist, with a clean look. The photographs are very minimalist. And the idea of entering this object is kind of fun. Then the film starts, and slowly, it builds in terms of emotion, and people are surprised.

I: Perhaps you wanted to emphasise how intrusive it was for the Makonde to be filmed.

AF: It was very much that. But it was also the fact that we, as Portuguese, find it so difficult to see ourselves and criticise ourselves objectively. With this project, I felt a great desire to emphasise this so that people would finally understand. In the Amnesia project, which I did 20 years ago, some extracts from Moçambique: No Outro Lado do Tempo appear for the first time. My intention was that of a less experienced and perhaps less courageous artist. There was a nostalgia for tropicalism in those images. Usually, when Amnesia is exhibited - and it is still exhibited today - museum directors say to me: "look, Ângela, I don't know what you've done, but not a day goes by without me having to escort someone out of there after closing the museum, sitting watching the films". What I realised in that piece was that people went to see it for one of two reasons: some to see the exotic, almost neo-colonial; other people turned up because they had lived in Africa... They were returnees and had experienced a trauma that they hadn't resolved, so they went there and cried. That really upset me. I always felt that I hadn't been clear in my work. In Amnesia, there's a flexibility that I'm not comfortable with. People would say to me: "there must be room for manoeuvre. You cannot prevent someone from going there and crying". But, in a way, I felt some discomfort because what I wanted to say in Amnesia was precisely: "you're forgetting what you did in Africa. You must sort this out, and then we'll move on". When I got to A Tendency to Forget, 20 years later, I thought: "no, this time there won't be the same room for manoeuvre. This time, I have to say what I want to say". More than 20 years have passed, and so A Tendency to Forget carries a sharper edge than Amnesia. But of course, the more assertive a work is, the more aggressive the reception.

I: Despite this, do you believe that your intention to be more assertive was well received by a section of society and, therefore, validated by the award?

AF: At the time I was invited to participate in the award, the focus was very much on themes of colonialism and Africa. A Tendency to Forget was probably the most piercing work I did on this subject. I would say that there is an institution, Novo Banco, that has embraced a theme of artistic research that would never have endorsed it 10 or 15 years earlier, and in this sense, yes. We have a society much more prepared to accept these issues in the mainstream.

3. Decolonising Museums or "Giving Back What's Not Ours"

I: How do you assess the possibility of starting the process of decolonising museums in Portugal?

AF: I think the decolonisation of museums is a very interesting issue. António Pinto Ribeiro²¹ helped us a lot a few years ago when he clearly said to someone who asked him in a newspaper interview: "which museums should be decolonised?". And he answered with a single expression: "all of them". Since then, there has been a kind of current discourse on the decolonisation of these institutions. I think that some museums are already embracing this idea and have started to make some changes in order to try to decolonise themselves. The point is that decolonising museums, like decolonising whatever else, has to involve contemporary thinking, new and from decolonised people. Decolonising museums means closing them down; it means engaging with African peoples; it means restitution, in other words, giving back what is not ours.

I: What would it mean, in your opinion and specifically, to decolonise the National Museum of Ethnology?

AF: We would have to reconsider the entire African collection housed there. Who collected it? How did it get there? What is it doing there? When we want our children to visit the museum to see its collections, put together by Jorge Dias and his collaborators, what do we want them to learn? The Museum of Ethnology is an extremely complicated museum to decolonise because the colonial system established ethnology itself and is deeply rooted in the concept of colonialism. Interestingly, it was in the 1960s that ethnology itself became a pioneer in terms of reflexivity. It is the first discipline that literally questions itself in terms of validity. What is true is that many of the museums and many of the disciplinary areas remain attached to an outdated model of ethnology. In English, the problem of decolonising ethnology museums is called a hotbed. Of course, here in Portugal, art museums also have this problem. However, the focus of this discussion is the Museum of Ethnology. For example, we will not be able to decolonise this museum if we have the same workers working there for 30 years. It's not possible because these people are not decolonised. You have to ask: "what does it mean to decolonise a museum?". Perhaps the answers to this question are so dramatic that it's very difficult for museums to envision their survival from that point on.

I: However, we are already witnessing some signs of this decolonisation...

AF: At Tate Modern in 2019, it was possible to exhibit a work like Fons Americanus²² by Kara Walker²³. Will this project endure? Let's see how it will continue. And one more thing, coming back to the people who work in museums. You cannot have a Museum of Ethnology these days that doesn't have a single African staff member. It does not make sense.

I: As a supposition, perhaps investigating Margot Dias' authorial responsibility would also help to take things off a superficial level.

AF: I hope so, for various reasons. Not only because the problem is huge, vast, complex and plentiful but also because it's a woman who, in a way, was disallowed by her own husband. And so it was a dual opportunity for the museum to update its management methods because Portuguese ethnography is not only racist, it's also ultra-sexist! There was a moment in my thesis when I had to ask myself: "so, there was no progressive, left-wing ethnographer or anthropologist in Portugal?". There had to be someone else, and indeed there was. Gulbenkian gave grants that promoted this area. There was an eminent anthropologist, Alfredo Margarido²⁴. There was an alternative, as there was in every political system. If you didn't like it, you had to leave. Collaboration with the colonial political system was not an obligation. Thus, Margot, who was eccentric and very much a part of the upheavals and complexities of Portuguese colonial essence, would be a marvellous subject for the museum to explore in a new light.

I: Interestingly, the image symbolising our research hypothesis is Margot's own shadow operating the camera (Figure 5). Margot Dias, a shadow among the Makonde people, a shadow in her political relationship with the Portuguese Estado Novo... And the shadow also has to do with the erasure of her authorship...

Margot Dias - Filmes etnográficos (Ethnographic films; 1958-1961) DVD 01- 00:02:39. Credits. Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema e da Direção-Geral do Património Cultural/Museu Nacional de Etnologia

Figure 5: The shadow of Margot Dias filming among the Makonde 

AF: This image is beautiful, this concept of the shadow... Working on this idea of the shadow... Because you have several shadows, she is her husband's shadow. And she creates shadows.