Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 20

Figure 3. Monumento aos combatentes do ultramar, Belém
“… poor cornered animals filled with evil and terror” (Antunes 2008:205)
The colonial wars are remembered not only in monuments but also in art
including visual art. Photography, for example, has had a long and complex
relationship with colonialism. This relationship is explored in a recent
publication analyzing such issues as anthropological modes of classifying
and registering colonial subjects, olonial subjects, othe production of
knowledge by means of photographs, and the circulation, dissemination,
and reproduction patterns of colonial photographs (Vicente ����). The
timeframe of this publication largely excludes the colonial wars (see, however,
Laranjeiro ����). The atrocities committed by European colonial powers on
African subjects and photographically documented are well known and
critically discussed in international studies (see Patrick ����). The context
of Portuguese colonialism, however, is under explored (see, however, Ramos
����). Portuguese colonialism collapsed before soldier photography emerged
as a widely disseminated mass phenomenon (Struck ����). Thus, the visual
material available is limited. � It was also an era of censorship by the
�
However, in recent years, several autobiographies on the colonial wars have been published, many
of which include photographs. The analysis of these writings and photographs is beyond the scope
of this article just as is the evaluation of the material, visual and otherwise, collected in the Arquivo
Histórico Ultramar in Lisbon.
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