Disrupting self-censorship, inventing public space through interactive performances in Luanda, Angola

Abstract

This article analyses a series of cultural events organised in Luanda, Angola, in 2021–2022 by an artistic collective called the Vosi Yetu Project. These open-mike sessions promoting freedom of expression are analysed as carnivalesque moments redistributing the norms of who can be visible and what can be said (and heard) in public. By doing so, they implicitly challenge the hegemonic workings of the ruling party and open political breaches through which new scenes seem possible. Based on three-year fieldwork in Luanda and mobilising immersive film-recording, the article explores the meaning of these interactive performances both at the individual level and in terms of collective momentum towards systemic change. How are we individually touched to the point of becoming a part of something bigger? It also questions the conditions of possibility of ethnographic encounters in a city marked by high levels of surveillance. What does it mean to hold a camera in the middle of people voicing their discontent? How far can the bodily experience of a foreign white woman help unravel the subjectivities of young Angolan men? The article does not respond unequivocally to all these questions but uses them to reflexively engage the multisensory emergence of public space.