The Municipality of Almada, located in the Setúbal district, is spearheading a project centered around the Monument to the Dead of the Great War in Luanda, often referred to as Maria da Fonte. This statue, erected in 1937, is recognized as one of the most significant structures reflecting Portuguese presence in Africa.
The monument was demolished in 1976, a year after Angola’s independence, resulting in the dispersal of large blocks of sculpted stone; however, the original pedestal remained untouched, the municipality noted in a statement.
Kiluanji Kia Henda has created a series of digital collages using documentary images of the monument’s fragments and the Angolan and Cuban soldiers involved in its destruction. These have led to the creation of eight posters of fictional music bands, printed on a monumental scale.
At the heart of the main pool, the work “The Sound is the Monument” is featured — a geometric plinth that reinterprets the form of a pedestal, transforming it into an acoustic box.
The municipality explains that this structure serves to disseminate a repertoire of Angolan music, creating sonic counter-narratives to the colonial and imperialist discourse, establishing music as a vehicle of memory, identity, and cultural insurgency.
“Through this aesthetic and symbolic operation, the artist redefines the ruins of the past as a substance of invention and resistance, proposing a critical reflection on new ways to celebrate and re-inscribe memory in public space, where sound — music — assumes the role of a monument,” explains the Municipality of Almada.
The exhibition is open until November 15, from Thursday to Saturday, between 2:00 PM and 6:00 PM.
According to the Municipality of Almada, Kiluanji Kia Henda is a multidisciplinary artist based in Luanda, whose artistic practice centers on using art as an instrument of historical transmission and reconstruction, through various media — such as photography, video, performance, installation, object sculpture, music, and avant-garde theater.
Kiluanji Kia Henda is also a co-founder of KinoYetu, an association based in Luanda dedicated to promoting the arts, with a particular focus on cinema.
His work has been featured or commissioned by numerous prestigious institutions and events worldwide.
His project “Plantation,” consisting of a hundred aluminum sugar canes, the “white gold” that was at the origin of the slave trade, was chosen as the Memorial to Enslaved People to be installed in Lisbon, as part of the 2017 Participatory Budget.
