New Words for Mindelo's Urban Creole 2014
Digital HD file, 16:9, 10 minutes and 26 seconds, b&w, sound
Displaying neologisms, aimed at enriching the vocabulary of the substratum creole language of Cape Verde which is spoken in informal contexts.
This piece is refers to my experience of living and working in Mindelo, in my native Cape Verde. The neologisms, made from names of Portuguese colonial administrators and names of Greek mythology characters, propose parallels between colonial history and the social dynamics that have emerged in the country since 1990 with end of a single-party Marxist regime that gave way to parliamentary democracy and free market economy. This work, made three years after I left the country, beyond being a critical reflection on particular social mindsets and practices it also reflects my outsider, distant and privileged on-look as 'returned' diaspora in that society.