Spoken Portraits, Visual Frames

In this performance I share five portrait poems that emerged from my time as a researcher in Lobito – one of Angola's most dynamic cities. Portrait poems are my way of capturing the insights that came from mutual glances, mutual framing within the cellphone lens, from the motorbike seat, in a glance on the road, in dialogue. Using English, Portuguese and Umbundu, they demand that Lusophone Africa also be attended. In their articulation of the guessed, the judged, the desired in ethnographic practice, they make demands of freedom of speech and thought in Angola despite the fear of water and light being “cut” by government spies. Equally, they call for freedom of speech and thought in academia that goes beyond ideational games played for funding, the ranking of ideas, the insistence on a hierarchy of language and citational practice that leaves the Lusophone unheard (except by millions). They ask ‘if someone is seen but does not count as Evidence, is she real?’ They ask ‘What is sustainable about the future, if the present has not been witnessed?’ They ask ‘How are dreams and nightmares experienced right now, by the researcher as well as the researched? How is the individual seen?’ Como vai? What's happening here? The images I will include give the context of the space and allow the audience to be visually present. The spoken Portraits bring to life those who are absent from the scene: child, old man, young woman, vendor, migrant. Let them be heard, and here.