Mónica de Miranda: Nurturing Community at the City’s Edge

Portugal cannot escape or erase its colonial past. After gaining independence, thousands of people from Lusophone Africa migrated to Portugal and built communities that have flourished for generations. But now that new migrants are arriving, Lisbon has been attempting to push its African residents out to the margins of the city and out of view through gentrification and outright removal. Mónica de Miranda is confronting this legacy and uplifting these stories—showing how much Africans have contributed to the landscape and culture of Lisbon. Her project, “Where cities are invisible, gardens grow,” will be a film and archive developed in collaboration with these African migrant communities working in reclaimed community gardens. This theme of shared trauma inflicted on both the natural world and the communities that live closely with it carries across many of the 2023 Soros Arts Fellows’ works: from hurricanes and typhoons to urban gardens. But through their work, these projects show how these wounds can best be healed together. The 2023 Soros Arts Fellowship is centered around the theme of Art, Land, and Public Memory. Eighteen artists from around the world will create projects that propose bold solutions to address the climate crisis, reclaim and uplift indigenous knowledge, and imagine and build sustainable futures. Learn more: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/newsroom/open-society-foundations-announce-2023-soros-arts-fellows