Paper short abstract:

I intend to reflect on emerging trends towards art innovation in the archipelagos of São Tomé and Principe, and Cape Verde, where the renewal of African art and the absorption of European elements are a testament to an originality and resilience that cannot fail to be of interest to Europeans.

Paper long abstract:

I intend here to reflect on emerging forms of innovation on the archipelagos of São Tomé and Principe, and Cape Verde: the logic of bricolage and miscegenation

in São Tomé, so present in Tchiloli drama, and in the creative recycling of the São Toméan artists Geanne Castro, Adilson Castro and Demilson Sousa; the use of waste materials found throughout the urban landscape of Sao Tomé, such as motorcycle fuel tanks, plastic, bicycle parts and tires, in the miscigenated artworks of René Tavares. Another point of interest, which is particularly important for the generation currently coming into its own, is the creation of the Cacau the creation of the Cacau Foundation - House of Art, Creation, the Environment and Utopias in 2018; and finally the way in which the memory of colonialism and its inherited consequences are critically deconstructed by the contemporary artistic language of audio-visual artist César Cardoso and the poetry that permeates his videos, reminiscent of the mythological figures in the paintings of Tchalé Figueira.

Given that the peoples of these islands were abruptly cut off from their identity and communities of origin by colonialism, and were separately brought together in groups of mixed ethnicity, these artistic manifestations, permeated by the memories of colonialism, reflect their capacity to reinvent themselves.

In this context, the unique way in which these artists renew both African art and elements absorbed from European artistic traditions, reveals an originality and capacity for resilience that cannot fail to be of interest to Europeans.