iMAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture CentreBelém
Ângela Ferreira: Here I Stand
Survey of Ângela Ferreira from 1990s pieces to new work, tracing her long research into the facts, figures and architectures linked to colonialism.
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Out on the CCB Plaza stands a building that was never built. Zip Zap Circus School is a canvas-covered wooden structure on wheels, a life-size model of a school Pancho Guedes designed in 1995 for a Cape Town circus that never found the backing to build it.
Inside, on Floor 0, are 25 works from 1991 to 2026, many never shown in Portugal. You follow one thread: the buildings, infrastructures and people of colonialism, and the resistance to it. Born in Maputo and trained as a sculptor in Cape Town under apartheid, Ferreira is, in the museum's words, one of the first artists in Portugal to openly question the country's colonial past. The title comes from Paul Robeson's 1958 book, and she told DN that an artist has to take sides.
Entry is on the €15 museum ticket. Free tours (8 November and 24 January at 11am), a visit to Ferreira's studio (20 February) and her own tour with the curator (27 February at 3pm) need registration by email.
Editor's pick
Sculptures and structures built from Ângela Ferreira's thirty years of research into colonial architecture and its afterlives, from 1990s pieces to work made for this show.
Look for
Zip Zap Circus School, on the CCB Plaza
Look outside the museum for a canvas-and-wood building on wheels, Ferreira's full-size take on Pancho Guedes's unbuilt Cape Town circus school, activated by Chapitô circus students.
Sites and Services (1991/92)
Twelve colour photographs of concrete toilets standing on bare plots in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, laid out under apartheid housing policy, with a pastel drawing and four floor sculptures.
Stone Free (Zama Zama) (2026)
A mine headframe of wood and steel cable hangs floating in the room, with two screens showing a film by musician Scúru Fitchádu.
Rádio Voz da Liberdade (2022)
A series on the anti-colonial radio station, where you hear Manuel Alegre's recorded voice and the Portuguese anthem, beside the secret police's transcripts.
Realistic Manifesto (2022)
Four works after Naum Gabo's Constructivism, built from objects in the artist's everyday life, including a lathe, a water heater and window grilles.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want art without an argument: Ferreira says an artist has to take sides.
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Nearby
Image credits
9
- Ângela Ferreira: Here I StandLaurent Lecat
- Life is the Game – An immersive experience by Paulo FurtadoMAAT, 2026
- Pedro Cabrita Reis – “without sorrow of heart”Photo: João Ferrand, courtesy of the artist
- Exhibiting, Publishing: MAAT in Print (2016–2026)Photograph: Fábio Cunha, courtesy of EDP Foundation
- MAC/CCB – Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture CentreHerbert wie, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museu Nacional de ArqueologiaJose Luis Filpo Cabana, CC BY 3.0
- Museu de MarinhaNan Palmero, CC BY 2.0
- Museu Nacional dos CochesBosc d'Anjou / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and TechnologyStefan Bethke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0