University of Minho and ICS host the series ‘Deconstructing Colonialism, Decolonising the Imagination. Portuguese Colonialism in Africa: Myths and Realities’
The University of Minho, in conjunction with the Institute of Social Sciences, will host the travelling exhibition “Deconstructing Colonialism, Decolonising the Imaginary. Portuguese Colonialism in Africa: Myths and Realities” between 16 February and 25 March 2026.

The exhibition will be on display at the General Library of the Gualtar Campus between 16 February and 9 March, and between 10 and 26 March at the Azurém Campus Library.

 

This exhibition, conceived and coordinated by Isabel Castro Henriques, is organised by the National Museum of Ethnology in partnership with the ISEG Centre for African and Development Studies.

 

It presents the main dynamics of Portuguese colonialism in Africa between the 19th and 20th centuries and seeks to dismantle myths created by colonial ideology, promote the decolonisation of Portuguese imaginaries and renew, in an accessible and educational way, knowledge about the colonial past. The aim is to involve the public and communities in the appreciation and dissemination of their own cultures, based on the Museum’s commitment to studying the provenance of its non-European collections and critically reflecting on the colonial context in which it was created and assembled its first collections.

The exhibition’s narrative unfolds along a historical axis—thematic panels on the forces that structured Portuguese colonialism—and an artistic axis, with works that reveal the cultural and intellectual depth of African societies.
This second axis brings together 139 works, mainly from the collections of the National Museum of Ethnology, including pieces deposited by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the collector Francisco Capelo, as well as contemporary works by Lívio de Morais, Hilaire Balu Kuyangiko and Mónica de Miranda.

Part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, the exhibition is the result of the work of around thirty researchers and the collaboration of various national and foreign institutions, which provided the extensive iconographic documentation used in the explanatory panels.

 

The project also includes the ‘Cinema and Decolonisation’ cycle, with films dedicated to post-colonial realities, presented at ISEG and the National Museum of Ethnology.

In a joint organisation of the research centres of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Minho – CECS, CICS, CRIA and Lab2PT, two debates will be held:

. 26 February 2026 (Thursday), 2.30 pm, Engineering II Auditorium (Building 16)
Conversations about colonialism: cultural and memory institutions
Moderator: Sheila Khan (Lusófona University, Porto)

Isabel Castro Henriques (Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon)*
Santos Simão (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Lab2PT/IN2PAST)
Maria Figueira (IHC | NOVA FCSH, Lisbon / University of Évora – IN2PAST)

 

On 26 February, after the debate, there will be a guided tour of the exhibition on display at the General Library of the University of Minho in Gualtar.

 

. 25 March 2026 (Wednesday), 2.30 pm, Engineering II Auditorium (Building 16)
Conversations on colonialism: contemporary confrontations
Moderator: Francisco Mendes (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Lab2PT/IN2PAST)

Julião Soares (Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Coimbra, CEIS20)
José Carlos Venâncio (University of Beira Interior, CECS)
Laura Burocco (CRIA, ISCTE-IUL – IN2PAST)