Language As Art Object: Africa in the Museums of the Portuguese Language—Brazil and Portugal

Abstract

This essay sets out to analyze the vectors of continuity and reconfiguration of the Portuguese empire in the narratives of the Portuguese language in its two hegemonic spaces, and within a new sphere, that of the Arts. It will explore the language narratives as they materialized in the Museu da Língua Portuguesa in São Paulo, and in the convoluted trajectory of its homologous museum’s projects in Lisbon. The main focus of this comparative analysis is how Africa—the one that belongs to the contemporary Portuguese and Brazilian imaginaries—has been represented in these museums. The object of analysis is therefore the imagination of Africa in Brazil and Portugal.