Galeria Nuno Centeno is pleased to present alheava_film, directed by Manuel Santos Maia.
Manuel Santos Maia’s artistic project alheava is dedicated to the issues of Colonialism and Post-Colonialism, from a transtemporal perspective, combining social and political history, family narratives and self-fiction, elaborating problems and rehearsing aesthetic configurations capable of actively contributing to the interpretation of collective relations with the colonial past, with an anthropology of memory (including the traumatic event and post-memory) and reflecting the intercultural transits in which contemporary Portugal is built.
Since 1999, this artistic research work has been a pioneer in the field of Visual Arts in Portugal, perhaps only finding a parallel in the work of the artist Ângela Ferreira, who, however, has different presuppositions and scales of work.
The study undertaken and the creative project also invest in a well-founded and aesthetically complex meditation in the field of relations between African peoples and European peoples, traditional societies and modernity, colonial political systems and social imaginaries, forming part of a broad international debate.
The project has been presented in four dozen group and solo exhibitions in which Manuel Santos Maia has participated.
As this is an artistic investigation based on long professional work, the bibliographical research, theoretical reflection and a series of artistic achievements (exhibitions, films, publications) that have already been made inform Manuel Santos Maia’s entire artistic project in a very solid and consistent way.
alheava_film was presented for the first time in Iowa, USA, in 2008, and was awarded the Prix Ibn Batuta at FIAV.08 (Festival d’Images Artistiques Video, 8ème édition) in Algeria.
It has been shown in the United States, England, France, Germany, Spain, Macau and Algeria. In Portugal it has been shown at the Serralves Auditorium, Doc Lisboa, Cinema Medeia Teatro Municipal Campo Alegre, CIAJG – Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães, Allgarve’10, Galeria Nuno Centeno, Galeria Arte Contemporânea – Lisboa, Galeria Quadrado Azul – Lisboa.