Ceci n'est pas Francisco
2025
"Counter-Kiosk" colective exhibition for Braga25, portuguese capital of culture
29th march 2025
more info here
The artist Marta Pinto Machado questions the archive and official historiography, highlighting its partiality and incompleteness. From the discovery of a photograph in the Braga District Archive, of Francisco Mendonça — a Black footballer who lived in Braga during the 1960s — Marta proposes to reconstruct fragmented narratives about his time in the city, addressing racially and politically silenced issues. Her work, titled "Ceci n’est pas Francisco", creates a new archive, where documentary discoveries, photography, and fiction merge, not with the intent to preserve, but to resist and retell. For Marta, when the archive or the past is absent, other narratives can emerge, allowing for critical reflection and change regarding the present and future.
