During the dictatorship of the Estado Novo, thousands of Portuguese took the path of exile. This constituted an important contemporary flow of people in the history of Portugal. Men and women fleeing repression, imprisonment, the Colonial War and poverty followed various paths, including those in many European countries. They were exiled in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark.
This exhibition is about the memory and material traces of these routes, the clandestine ‘leap’ from the border, the objects that marked everyday life and those that came in the returning suitcase…
Equipa #ECOS
Every family was touched by the war. 950,000 young people were mobilized across the three fronts in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau.
Around 9000 died, about 15 000 Portuguese were mutilated or affected by war stress
Approximately 200,000 Portuguese youths failed to attend military inspection; between 15 and 20 000 attended but refused to make war by leaving Portugal; about 9000 deserted.
For all of these, the solution was emigration / exile.
In this exhibition, we want to show what some of these young people in the various countries of exile have done to fight fascism and colonial war; the various difficulties they experienced; the varied solidarity that welcomed them; the hopelessness of not seeing friends or family again, the point of no return, the resumption of another life in another place of foreign language and customs. We want to talk about exile, oppose silences, and remember memories, objects and narratives from uncertain times.
