Visões do Império (Visions of Empire)

Spoken: Portuguese. Subtitles: English.

Photography was crucial for colonialism, not only in Belgium, but also in Portugal. Without this medium, the idealization and knowledge of the colonies would have been different. They fueled the imagination around colonial domination and contributed to a vision of the ‘other’ as essentially different. Visions of the Empire offers a multifaceted collection of photographs that put into perspective the history, events, and most relevant actors of the Portuguese colonial empire. Several colonial pasts are recovered, and keys are offered for new, more refined reflections on their contemporary reverberations.