Délio Jasse e a relação com o colonialismo português

"Ausência Permanente", patente até 17 de Janeiro de 2015 na Smac Art Gallery, é a primeira exposição individual na África do Sul do artista angolano Délio Jasse, nascido em Luanda em 1980 e actualmente radicado em Lisboa, vencedor dos BES PHOTO em 2009. Os trabalhos de instalação apresentados reflectem sobre a (des)ordem da cidade onde nasceu, articulando o passado colonial com o presente e as memórias dos seus habitantes actuais.

'Ausencia Permanente' (Endless Absence) deals with the collapse of the Portuguese empire and the plight of theretornados, the Portuguese who departed Africa for the mother country. In 1975 the colonies had existed for over four centuries, and during that time the Portuguese had struck deep roots – the continent had become home to many successive generations. The settlers often married Angolans and Mozambicans and assimilated their customs, just as many Angolans and Mozambicans were effectively Europeanized by the Portuguese education system. The retornados, often failed to identify with the mother country and its culture. Frequently those who had achieved wealth and social prominence in the colonies, found themselves living in desperately straitened circumstances in Portugal having lost their former status.

The installation of 'Ausencia Permanente' exists in a dim pocket of otherness, insulated from the rest of the gallery. It is a space apart, another country in the geography of the floor-plan, and, at first, it proves disorientating. Your eyes have to adjust themselves to the far lower levels of light before you can take your bearings and see your surroundings. Unfamiliar customs prevail. Instead of clinging to the wall, Delio Jasse’s installation rests on the floor, so that you glance downward into a series of nine open Perspex boxes. These contain black and white photographic prints lying in shallow baths of water, like placentas floating in amniotic fluid, or negatives submerged in developer in a photographer’s darkroom.  The latter becomes a metaphor for history, for the emergence of the unforeseen, of events that run contrary to our every expectation. Delio also draws an implicit comparison between the photographic image slowly coming into being as it is processed, and a memory gradually arising from consciousness.

Lloyd Pollak, em The Endless Absence of Delio Jasse