GreenHouse. Art, Ecology & Resistance

A corner of biodiversity as an instrument of decolonisation and as a vector for political action and dialogue. A Creole garden, like the identity of people forcibly transplanted from their place of birth to work in a state of slavery. The official catalogue of the Portuguese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Greenhouse weaves together texts by artists, curators and theorists on the themes of ecology, identity, history and diaspora in relation to contemporary artistic practices. Conceived by artist-curators Mónica de Miranda, Sónia Vaz Borges and Vânia Gala and commissioned by Portugal's DGArtes (Directorate General of the Arts), Greenhouse is a tribute to the private lands tended by slaves as an act of resistance and survival, an antithesis to monocultures and colonial egoism. Looking at land as a vector of decolonial thought and practice, inspired by Amílcar Cabral, the agronomist and leader of the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, Greenhouse brings together the historical narratives of liberation, examining contemporary decolonial practices and the imagination of possible futures in the context of the Anthropocene and the ongoing struggles against structural racism and for historical reparation.