Grandma Didn't tell me 

"Grandma didn't tell me about her childhood, about how it was to live in Portugal.

Grandma didn't tell me about her life in Angola and Mozambique, nor about how she had to return.

Grandma didn't tell me that she keeps the photo of her first love in the album, but won't show it to anyone.

Grandma didn't tell me that she fled the war with the money she managed to hide inside her vagina.

Grandma didn't tell me about the day she stopped playing the piano.

Grandma didn't tell me about how Grandpa walked away and left her with my mother.

Grandma didn't tell me about the prostitution of cabaret and "revista" performers.

Grandma didn't tell me about the black victims of the independence of the former colonies.

Grandma didn't tell me that rich girls were not allowed to go to school.

Grandma didn't tell me about her trip through the African continent.

Grandma didn't tell me about her childhood work.

Grandma didn't tell me about her career as a singer-songwriter and radio performer.

Grandma didn't tell me about Grandpa's mistresses.

Grandma didn't tell me about her great-great-grandfather, who was from São Tomé and Príncipe and might have been a slave trader

Grandma didn't tell me about her impossible passion for a man from another social class.

Grandma didn't tell me about her great-grandfather, who was a jazz musician and whom she only met while he was asleep.

Grandma didn't tell me why she sent my mother to boarding school.

Grandma didn't tell me about the 25th of April.

Grandma didn't tell me about her childhood at the Tivoli theater.

Grandma didn't tell me about this Lisbon that is made of so many layers.

Grandma didn't tell me that I was the first woman in the family to be born in freedom.

This I found out, only after listening to her."

 

Based on real testimonies collected with the residents of the N. Sra.a dos Anjos day care center between May and September 2020

 

 

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GRANDMA DIDN'T TELL ME is an ongoing project carried out in different territories (Portugal, Hungary and on-going), focusing on the narratives of the last generations of women in our society. Women who were born in the 20-40s had less access to education, and therefore history as we know it comes mostly from a male perspective. What happens when we approach these women directly, what stories have yet to be heard, and what can we discover or imagine through access to their visual archive? Through drawing, I reconnect with their memories with attention and care, understanding that most of them will simply remain untold.

 

The present project intends to develop around the stories told by grandmothers about their lives: their childhood, youth, society and culture, their memories, family ties, work, and politics, through a female point of view.

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Vídeo of the process

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Thank you to: Centro de Dia de N. Sra dos Anjos, LARGO Residências, LAAR Residencies (Lisbon Municipality), Budapest Gallery, Mais uno +1, and all the participants in the project ant their families (Liliana, Branca, Magdosnéni, Marikanéni, Octávia, Rosa, Lurdes, Vidaúl, Helena, Alice, Diana, Maria.

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Photography by Nicole Sánchez.