Portuguese photographer Mónica de Miranda’s first solo show takes its title from the Hotel Panorama in Luanda (Angola), but also refers to the ownership and power implied by the construction of views of landscapes. In de Miranda’s photographic work, we see visions of the past and present of Angola as witnessed through its architectural geography: hotels, swimming pools and cinemas, mid-century modernist buildings which once served as monuments to colonial leisure, have been abandoned, repurposed, and are being silently reclaimed by the lush natural landscape. These urban spaces bear witness to the country’s troubled history of colonization, decolonization, civil war, gentrification and globalization.
Two twins occupy the various landscapes, cryptic characters evoking a multiplicity of selves, or a mirroring of self and other, revealing the sense of duality inherent in the experience of migration and diaspora. Mixed emotions of nostalgia and alienation are expressed through images of spaces both domestic and public, in and around the capital of Luanda, as well as in Malanje, the city east of Luanda where the artist’s mother grew up. These photographs capture the mournful dichotomy of tenderness and distance, which plays out in the way we relate to locations with strong ancestral and historical ties.
De Miranda’s images are transformed into panoramic, absorbing installations, hinting at the idea that our own position as subject may influence our perception of physical spaces, both architectural and natural. The artist also intervenes on the surface of her photographs with wax and pigments, both enriching their texture and color, and alluding to the process of preservation – in these materials we get the sense of the relationship between memory and history, and the way in which memory both colors history and works to keep it alive.
Mónica de Miranda, Panorama
May 19 to July 13, 2017
26 Barrett St, Marylebone
London W1U 1BG
United Kingdom
