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Reflexão
"Discoveries" Panel
Part of a set of panels entitled ‘discoveries’, made by a Polish artist for the Expo 98 exhibition. Even after the end of the dictatorship and at the end of the 20th century, the colonial narrative was still chosen to represent Portuguese history and national identity.
The caravel appears here as the main element of this epic narrative, placed on a map of the world and with open hands, conveying the idea that ‘we gave worlds to the world’. Once again, colonial invasions are remembered through a positive lens, where civilisational ‘development’ is exalted and celebrated, pushing aside the history of all the lives and cultures devastated to make this possible.
The image and its dramatic narrative make evident the idea of the world as something that can be colonised and the Portuguese navigators as its ‘rightful owners’. Although the panel was made in 1998, it represents the same colonial and imperialist ideas of the dictatorial regime prior to the 25 April Revolution.