In 2019, Portela had the opportunity to visit OROZCO’s frescoes in Cabanas about the arrival of the ‘Hispanics’ in Latin America. The connection to Almada Negreiros’ murals at Lisbon’s Gare Marítima was immediate and uncomfortable.
It was like looking in a mirror that shows the other side of the history we were taught at school. He found himself imagining a corridor where, on one side, is the Alcântara station in Lisbon, which welcomed refugees in WWII, soldiers returning from the colonial war after 25 April, and also the home of the paintings that Salazar commissioned Almada to ‘show the grandeur of Portuguese conquests around the world’.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Orozco documents the arrival of these ‘conquerors’. With fire. With blood. With crucifixes, armour and
frightening habits. The aim of this installation is to merge these two panels into one another, as if we could enter a space and experience simultaneously, in the same body, the enthusiastic departure of the Portuguese ships and the disastrous arrival for those who live on the other side of the Atlantic.