Plantation Memories: Part I

An Afro-Brazilian filmmaker and a Swiss-Serbian photographer embark on a personal and political journey to confront the colonial mindset that still shapes relationships in today’s world. From Brazil, one of the most unequal countries marked by structural racism, to Switzerland, one of the richest and most privileged nations, they face uncomfortable questions: how can a Black woman thrive in a society built on racism? And how do you decolonize the mind when you’ve grown up surrounded by privilege? In search of answers, they dive into transformative conversations with inspiring voices around the world, while reflecting on their own contradictions, complicities, and hopes.

Retelling of the Greek myth. Grada Kilomba's 'Antigone' relates a story of resistance and justice, told from a black feminist perspective, in which the protagonist rebels against the colonial patriarchal system to bury her brother, transforming the burial into a political act against the oblivion of faces and reminding the spectator of the exploitation and death of black workers in colonial plantations.

Retelling of the Greek myth. Grada Kilomba's 'Narcissus and Echo' is a metaphor for a society which has yet to resolve its colonial past and is incapable of seeing beyond its own reflection. The rereading can be seen as an incisive analysis on the history of a system of distortion and exclusion.

Retelling of the Greek myth. Grada Kilomba's 'Oedipus' tells a story about violence, exploring the role that fate can play for those who live in a system that reproduces cyclical oppression.

An exploration of everyday racism reveals how much this places the black subject in a colonial setting where they once again are reduced to the subordinate, exotic 'Other'. Racism allows the past to suddenly line up with the present, and the present is experienced as if one were being catapulted back into that painful past.

With the written word as the only visual element, Grada Kilomba gives a voice to an individual who has been historically silenced by colonial narratives. "In this experimental video," the artist states, "I explore how thoughts can be associated not only with theory, but especially with sounds, movement and emotions."