The sculpture “Radio Voice of Freedom”, by Ângela Ferreira, is highlighted in the exhibition “Machinations”, which is based on the idea of machine created by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and opens at the Reina Sofía Museum, in Madrid, on Wednesday.
Curated by Pablo Allepuz, Manuel Borja-Villel, iLiana Fokianaki, Rafael García, and Teresa Velázquez, the exhibition addresses Deleuze and Guattari’s idea that the machine, “far from its instrumental and alienating connotations, constitutes a nucleus of infinite human potential and non-human relations, where a multitude of connections between technologies, knowledge, and practices are put into practice.”
“According to this theoretical framework, the exhibition addresses forms of resistance, coalition and creativity that materialize in the present through 50 artists, most of whom come from the Mediterranean and the African continent, and reflects on the historical and current circumstances of these territories,” the museum said in a statement.
The exhibition opens with two spaces “in which various works that somehow evoke mechanical imaginaries are put into dialogue,” such as “Tropical Space Proyectos” by Simón Vega, and “Radio Voz da Liberdade” by Ângela Ferreira.
The Portuguese artist’s work “rescues a forgotten story of solidarity between the Algerian population recently independent from France and the Portuguese, subjected to the regime of Oliveira Salazar,” the museum recalls.
“Since 1962, Algerian [Radiotelevision] collaborated with Portuguese clandestine radio to disseminate messages that led to the Carnation Revolution in 1974. This is an example of support for European liberation struggles from Africa, not the other way around,” the same text adds.
On the Mozambican-born artist’s website you can read that these “sister radios are represented by two sculptures based on illustrations from 1960s stamps, and large murals based on archival material, including photographs, trace the history of these revolutionary ‘media’.
The exhibition “Machinations” is on display at the museum in the Spanish capital until August 28 and includes works by artists such as Georges Adéagbo, Efrén Álvarez, Ismaïl Bahri, Sammy Baloji, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Ahmed Bouanani, Touda Bouanani, Rojava Film Commune, Cian Dayrit, Test Department, Dora García, Florencia Rodríguez Giles, Heiner Goebbels, Patricia Gómez and María Jesús González, Huanchaco (Fernando Gutiérrez), Femke Herregraven, among others.
Born in 1958, Ângela Ferreira completed her fine arts studies in South Africa and completed her master’s degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Currently living and working in Lisbon, she teaches at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, where she obtained her PhD in 2016.
With his work, which is mainly concerned with the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism on contemporary society, he represented Portugal at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007.
