Lisbon’s Alma Africana

A special exhibition paying tribute to Portugal’s African heritage

Lisbon was the first European city to develop trade and cultural ties with Africa, bringing the art and culture of different civilizations to the Old Continent. To see how European and specifically Portuguese culture influenced African art and vice versa, you should visit Lisbon’s African Soul (Alma Africana) exhibition at Páteo da Galé, a space in Praça do Comércio, through the arches next to the city’s main tourism office. The exhibition is open every day except Mondays until February 7 and offers free entries on Sundays and Wednesdays.

The Alma Africana exhibit features a unique collection by José Berardo, one of the leading Portuguese collectors, and consists of more than 1,000 artefacts that do not make part of the Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. They are divided into archaeological, ethnographic, and modern art displays, with some of the pieces dating back to the 3rd century and coming from places such as Niger, Angola, and Zimbabwe. Among the statues, masks, musical instruments, and jewelry, interesting objects include crucifixes showing the Catholic Portuguese influence, as well as readapted versions of chairs given by the Portuguese explorers to local tribal chiefs.

Special emphasis is given on the collection of archaeological significance, namely of the Bura-Asinda-Sika culture, which has its origin in middle Niger, along with the cultures of Nok in Nigeria and Akan in Ghana. The so-called Afro-Portuguese culture is highlighted through items of ivory that brought exoticism to the "cabinets of curiosities" of the sixteenth century.

The ethnographic part occupies most of the exhibition, highlighting the Ashanti Art of the Akan people in Ivory Coast, Togo and Ghana, the Bambara (or Bamana) people of Mali and the neighboring Dogon by the cliffs of Bandiagara with the zoomorphic masks. Also on show are masks of the Luena and Tshokwe tribes in Congo, Zambia and Angola, standing out among them the Tshibinda traditional figure and the soba string of the Bamikele (Cameroon) and the Hemba (Congo) tribes.

Other highlights are ancient figures carved in wood by the Kuba people (Congo) and pieces for performing arts (wigs and ornaments of body art) from the tribes of Makonde (Mozambique), Kongo (Congo), Nalu (Guinea-Bissau) or Luena (Angola). The exhibition comes to a close with a contemporary section, in can see shetani style sculptures of the Makonde and a stone sculpture from Zimbabwe.

The exhibit’s curator is Geert Bourgois, professor of History of Art and Non European Art at Antwerp University (Belgium) and ad hoc curator of the African Collection at the Monte Palace Museum (Funchal, Madeira), owned by the Berardo Foundation.