Sabrina Amrani Gallery
Calle Sallaberry 52
28019 Madrid
Spain

Opening date: 6th of May 2023

The sun does not rise in the north is an art project that aims to capture the intricate psyche
of the immigration system between Africa and Europe and the after fall of diaspora experiences in Europe.
The project refers to the irony of the dual metaphor of the sun standing as a search for pleasure and touristic leisure and on the other side being the light to flee poverty.

The narrative of the film is a critical process of historical de-construction and re-reading of the African and European experience and collective memory. Through the dialogues and monologues of the characters, which shape their portraits, the film reflects on the historical past of colonialism, the independence and liberation struggle in Africa against colonial forces. At the same time, the film reflects on the complex entanglements between historical time and deep time (which refers to the common history of the planet), bringing together human history with the material/natural dimension that grounds its existence, reflected in the landscapes separating Europe and Africa in the strait of Gibraltar.

In collaboration with Fourminds Films, LE18 – Marrakesh, and many others, the exhibition will be presented in April 2023 in Sabrina Amrani Gallery.

Chiostri di San Pietro
via Emilia San Pietro, 44/c
Reggio Emilia

Friday 28th of April 6PM Opening of the Festival

Saturday 29th of April 11AM Talk with Cédrine Scheidig and Tim Clark

The Island is centred on the recognition of African histories and cultures in their autonomy and diversity. It dismantles prejudices that have taken root in Portuguese society, giving value and respect to the active and dynamic participation of men and women of African origin who have lived and continue to live in Portugal, and whose achievements and contributions are central to the histories of the places in which they are integrated today. From a female biographical point of view, it weaves toigether several stories that challenge patriarchal narrative conventions.

The series questions standard notions of identity based on categories of race and gender, through a counter-narrative constructed by complex and intersecting biographies.

The Island is situated outside the Eurocentric gaze, being developed from a black feminist perspective, and implementing through its narrative the operation of the oppositional gaze (bell hooks) in which stereotypical representations of gender and race are deconstructed.

International Contemporary Art Fair

Convention & Exhibition Centre
1 Harbour Road
Hong Kong, China

The Art Basel Fair brings the international art world together.

Monica de Miranda’s work will be represented by Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid.

Monica will be speaking at the event: Conversations | Time Travelers: When Artists Remix the Past to Reframe the Present and there will be a screening of her film The Island.

International Contemporary Art Fair

The Arco Madrid fair celebrates it’s 42nd edition at IFEMA MADRID.

Monica de Miranda’s work will be represented by Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid and Carlos Carvalho – Arte contemporânea, Lisbon.

Uppsala Art Museum

The work portrays the human endeavour to understand the world we live in. In this exhibition, eight internationally active artists together explore the series. Through narration and fiction, they delve into the cultural and planetary crisis we are currently in the midst of.
Artists: Mónica de Miranda Eglė Budvytytė, Alma Heikkilä, Johannes Heldén, Signe Johannessen, Håkan Jonson, My Lindh and Imani Jacqueline Brown

Curator: Rebecka Wigh Abrahamsson

Turku Art Museum

Monica de Miranda’s research-led practice is grounded in postcolonial politics in relation to Africa and its diaspora. Her most recent project The Island (2021) contemplates the complex experiences of Afrodiasporic lives and Europe’s colonial past. Fusing fact and fiction, the work explores a long trajectory of black presences in Portugal by bringing together intertwined narratives – drawing on African liberation movements, migratory experiences, and identity formations through
a black feminist lens.

The Island is commissioned by Autograph, London and supported using public funding from Arts Council England. The exhibition is supported by the
Finnish Heritage Agency.

Sala 10: Monica de Miranda

Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo
Centro Cultural Universitario
C.P: 04510 Mexico City, Mexico
ONLINE EXHIBITION

The film “Path to the Stars” follows the journey of a heroine confronted by her own shadow, different temporalities and micro-narratives. It proposes a counter narrative composed of complex biographies that overlap and interact: from the anticolonial freedom fighters of the past, and the uncertainty of the present, the desire to belong, to the projection of a future where our symbiosis with nature is recuperated.

The film follows the journey, from dawn to dusk, of an ex-combatant of the Angolan struggle for liberation as she travels by boat past the banks of the Kwanza River, the birthplace of the Ndongo kingdom, a pre-colonial African tributary state of the Kongo kingdom, created by sub-groups of the Ambundu, and led by King Ngola. A metaphor of a female place that threads through various times and spaces, a serene-faced woman intently observes the nature that surrounds her, while her body slowly merges with the watery currents of the river.

Various characters appear throughout this journey: a shadow, an old woman and a child, soldiers who try to read their future in the lines of a map of Angola, and an astronaut, all of whom spin their stories in the murmur of theriver.

African Biennale of Photography

Founded in 1994, the Bamako Encounters – African Biennial of Photography is organized by the Ministry of Culture of Mali with the support of the Institut Français.The Biennale is the first and principal event dedicated to contemporary photography and new imagery in Africa.Internationally renowned, the Bamako Encounters is a platform for discoveries, exchanges, and visibility. It is an essential venue for the revelation of African photographers and those of the Diaspora, a time of exchange with the Malian public and the professionals from around the world.

Curated by Akinbode Akinbiyi, Meriem Berrada, Tandazani Dhlakama and Liz Ikiriko together with Artistic Director Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung

Nassauischer Kunstverein

The film follows the heroine, a former fighter of the Angolan liberation struggle, on her boat journey along the Kwanza River, the birthplace of the Ndongo Kingdom, a pre-colonial African tributary state of the Kingdom of Congo created by the Ambundu and led by King Ngola. A metaphor for a feminine place that spans different times and spaces, a woman with a clear gaze intently observes the nature that surrounds her as her body slowly melts into the water currents of the river. On this journey, different characters emerge: a shadow, an old woman and a child, soldiers trying to read their future in the lines of a map of Angola, and an astronaut – all their stories emerge in the rush of the river. ⁠ Kameli, Aimé Mpane

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

The book refers to the homonymous exhibition presented by Mónica de Miranda, a Portuguese and Angolan visual artist and researcher, during the 2022 Venice Biennale curated by Paula Nascimento. It is a photographic book that includes theoretical and poetic reflections on the film “Path to the Stars” (2022) and the symbolic universe it embodies. Dealing with issues of identity, memory and diaspora, in relation to different dimensions of time (from the ancestral past to the present and future), the book brings together various views on the complex relationships addressed in this new body of work. The book also includes an interview with the artist and the curator

Number of pages: 89
Published by Hangar Books