Mónica de Miranda, born in Portugal to Angolan parents in 1976, belongs to a generation shaped by both liberation and aftermath. Emerging just after Portugal’s withdrawal from its African colonies and the fall of dictatorship, her work probes the lingering marks of colonialism—those etched not only onto landscapes but also into memory and identity. Across photography, film, and installation, de Miranda constructs poetic spaces where history and imagination merge. Her images—abandoned colonial structures overtaken by foliage, solitary Black figures wandering through radiant terrains, and the intertwining of text and image—offer meditations on freedom, loss, and the cyclical renewal of nature.
Path to the Stars follows the journey of a woman veteran of Angola’s War of Independence as she travels along the Kwanza River, a site burdened with historical resonance. Once a route of both conquest and enslavement, the river becomes, through de Miranda’s lens, a realm of renewal and reflection. The film blurs the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical—the natural pulse of life along the river intertwines with spectral presences and ancestral echoes. Birds, insects, and flowing water merge with voices from the past, suggesting a world where the living and the departed coexist in fragile harmony.
Drawing inspiration from Portuguese and Angolan literary traditions, de Miranda invokes the poem Path to the Stars by Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first president and a key figure in its struggle for independence. The film’s title and imagery echo both his vision of hope and the monumental mausoleum built in his honor. Through her work, de Miranda reimagines the intersections of politics, ecology, and spirituality, transforming sites of historical trauma into places of restoration and transcendence.
This exhibition, curated by Gemma Rodrigues with Sofia Liv Iagnemma ’28, honors de Miranda’s poetic reclamation of landscape, history, and self.
Image: © Mónica de Miranda
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