BEYOND BOUNDARIES. A COLLECTIVE ODYSSEY: INTERNATIONAL GROUP SHOW

23 May - 31 August 2025

Overview

As part of Lisbon Art Week, the international contemporary art exhibition BEYOND BOUNDARIES – A COLLECTIVE ODYSSEY opens on May 23, across two complementary venues: the Water Museum – Barbadinhos Steam Pumping Station and the Cabo Verde Cultural Centre.

With artistic direction by the gallery THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE and curatorship by Graça Rodrigues, Sónia Ribeiro, and Ricardo Barbosa Vicente, the exhibition brings together works by 26 artists from various African geographies and the diaspora. It is part of the VIP programme of ARCO Lisboa, Portugal’s leading art fair, which takes place from May 29 to June 1 at the Cordoaria Nacional in Lisbon.

Beyond Boundaries offers a visual reflection on the philosophical concept of the third space—here understood as an interstitial territory where contemporary African art asserts itself as an act of aesthetic insurgency. The exhibition constructs a visual counter-narrative to inherited boundaries and positions art as a force capable of reconfiguring the world’s sensory horizons.

The exhibition presents a remarkable constellation of artists whose diverse and singular practices reflect the vitality, complexity, and strength of a continent in constant reinvention.

Structured around three key curatorial axes—materiality as discourse, figuration as resistance, and memory as a political gesture—the show invites viewers on a visual and sensorial journey that challenges the rigidity of entrenched hegemonic thought and evokes memory as an insurgent act.

Beyond Boundaries – A Collective Odyssey also embraces a dialogical relationship with Lisbon’s heritage linked to water supply systems, encouraging not only the discovery of artworks and artists, but also a critical reappraisal of the city’s industrial and social memory.

Integrated Artists

Water Museum – Barbadinhos Steam Pumping Station: Abraão Vicente (Cape Verde), Bev Butkow (South Africa), Cássio Markowski (Brazil), Eduardo Malé (São Tomé and Principe), Francisco Vidal (Angola/ Cape Verde), Gonçalo Mabunda (Mozambique), Ibrahim Bemba Kébé (Mali), Ilídio Candja Candja (Mozambique), Nelo Teixeira (Angola), Osías André (Mozambique), Patrick Bongoy (R.D.C.), Pedro Pires (Angola/ Portugal), René Tavares (São Tomé and Principe), Rómulo Santa Rita (Portugal / Angola), Yuran Henrique (Cape Verde)

Cabo Verde Cultural Centre: Alida Rodrigues (Angola), Amadeo Carvalho (Cape Verde), Ana Silva (Angola), António Ole (Angola), Barbara Wildenboer (South Africa), Cristiano Mangovo (Angola), Francisco Vidal (Angola/ Cape Verde), Manuela Jardim (Guinea Bissau), Maya-Inès Touam (Algéria / France), Osvaldo Ferreira (Angola), René Tavares (São Tomé and Principe), Samuel Nnorom (Nigeria), Vivien Kohler (South Africa)

Water Museum – Barbadinhos Steam Pumping Station:
On display until August 31
Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM

Cape Verde Cultural Center:
On display until August 30
Tuesday to Thursday: 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM; Friday and Saturday: 1:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Works