Opening Note: Repairing the Irreparable

Ana Cristina Pereira (Kitty Furtado) is a cultural critic committed to bridging the gap between academia and the public sphere. She has curated (post)colonial film exhibitions and promoted public discussions on memory, racism, and reparations. Holding a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of Minho, she is a researcher at the Communication and Society Research Centre, where she coordinates the migrant activisms research line of the MigraMediaActs project (2022–2025) and is preparing to launch her individual project, The Black Gaze (2023.08077.CEECIND). She is part of the curatorial team for Portugal's representation at the “2024 Venice Biennale”, for which she curated the Biomes program, and coordinated the Visual Culture working group of Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences from 2019 to 2024. Among other texts and special editions, she co-authored the book Abrir os Gomos do Tempo: Conversas Sobre Cinema em Moçambique (Opening the Buds of Time: Conversations About Cinema in Mozambique; 2022) with Rosa Cabecinhas.

Gessica Correia Borges (São Paulo, Brazil) is a social communicator with a degree from the Anhembi Morumbi University (Brazil), a master's degree in African Studies from the University of Porto (Portugal), with research on memory, identity and resistance through the oral history of Black Brazilian women. She is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at the University of Minho (Portugal), and holds a scholarship from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (reference 2023.01522.BD). Also contributes as a researcher to the project MigraMediaActs - Migrations, Media and Activism in Portuguese: Decolonising Media Landscapes and Imagining Alternative Futures (Communication and Society Research Centre). Her research usually focuses on themes such as decolonial activism, oral history and Black women. Gessica is a writer and poet by passion, with texts published in Brazilian anthologies, including Poetas Negras Brasileiras (Brazilian Black Women Poets; Editora de Cultura, 2021). Also a member of Portuguese anti-racist collectives and associations such as the União Negra das Artes.

Marta Lança (Lisbon, 1976) holds a degree in Literature and Portuguese Studies and is a PhD candidate in Artistic Studies at the School of Social and Human Sciences of the NOVA University of Lisbon. She has collaborated with Portuguese and Angolan cultural publications and created the magazines V_ludo, Dá Fala (in Cape Verde) and the portal BUALA (http://www.buala.org/pt) on post-colonial issues, which she has been editing since 2010. She has lived in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in Luanda (she taught at the Agostinho Neto University and collaborated with the I Luanda Triennale), in Maputo (the "Dockanema" documentary festival). She has produced many cultural projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries. As a programmer, she has organised several projects, including "Roça Língua" (São Tomé and Príncipe, 2011 and 2022); the cycle "Paisagens Efémeras" (Lisbon, 2015); "Expats" (2015); "Vozes do Sul" (Festival do Silêncio, 2017); the NAU project with Teatro Experimental do Porto (2018); "Para Nós, Por Nós: Produção Cultural Africana e Afrodiaspórica em Debate" (2018) and "sou esparsa, e a liquidez maciça": Gestos de Liberdade (maat, 2020). She has translated authors such as Asger Yorn, Achille Mbembe and Felwine Saar from French into Portuguese. You can read some of her articles at https://www.buala.org/pt/autor/marta-lanca.