As part of the LEAP project, four pop-up exhibitions will be held between March and April 2026 in unconventional venues across Europe, each focusing on a specific narrative and encouraging forward-looking dialogue on the legacy of colonization in today’s Europe.
The LEAP project’s pop-up exhibitions are being organized in collaboration with four partner organizations in Lisbon, Barcelona, Nantes, and Budapest. The selected artists are Chamaine de Heij, visual artist, photographer, and curator from France; François Piquet, visual artist from France; Lola Ramos, multimedia artist from Spain; and Suelen Calonga, artist-researcher from Lisbon.
MEET THE ARTISTS!
Suelen Calonga Brazilian artist-researcher. PhD student in Art History (TU Berlin), she researches Afro-Brazilian heritage in European museums — provenances, institutional silences and memory policies. His practice combines writing, installation, and public actions. She has participated in exhibitions, festivals, residencies and research presentations in Brazil, Europe, the United States and the west coast of Africa, with projects that combine research, art and education.
ABOUT THE WORK: “Fetish” exposes listening as extraction. The installation inverts the colonial label of “fetish”, revealing the true act of fetishization: the European apparatus that captured, froze and domesticated the sound rituals of the African diaspora. A metal horn amplifies ritual recordings collected in Brazil at the beginning of the twentieth century; an original black wax cylinder (c. 1904), pierced by gramophone needles, stands tall like a wounded body; A grid of photos of ethnographic fieldwork scenes reveal the choreography of the capture.
This work is part of the thematic narrative Lusotropicalism and Theories of Negation
Lola Ramos is a multimedia artist whose practice explores the intersection between the feminine and the monstrous through drawing, audiovisual work, embroidery and ceramics. Since 2016, with Daily Monstrosities, he has investigated identity, the fantastic and the dark. After a residency in Buenos Aires, she developed the Selvática project during her master’s degree in Lisbon and is currently completing a PhD focused on the history of the persecution of witchcraft in Portugal and Brazil.
ABOUT THE WORK: Perpetual Penitential Habit is an embroidered penitential tunic that bears the names of more than 500 women persecuted by the Portuguese Inquisition for witchcraft. Through embroidery — a traditionally domestic practice associated with the female gender — the work transforms an instrument of punishment and humiliation into a memorial of remembrance and resistance.
This work is part of the thematic narrative Subjugation of Women and Gender Prejudice.
Charmaine de Heij is a visual artist, photographer, and curator who explores the influence of colonial history on contemporary representation, identity, and social structures. Her work focuses on revealing hidden histories, challenging historical and cultural misrepresentations, and creating counter-narratives that put the communities involved at the center. Themes such as racism, exploitation, gender, beauty standards and collective memory are central to her practice.
ABOUT THE WORK: Mi Sabi explores Surinamese-Dutch identity, demonstrating how Surinamese culture, from language and music to gastronomy and traditions, originates from the African diaspora, while continuing to exert a visible influence on Dutch society and its cultural diversity. Mi Sabi makes it clear that African heritage is an essential part of European diversity.
This work is part of the thematic narrative Afro-descendants and European Diversity
François Piquet, born near Paris (France) in 1967, has lived and raised in Guadeloupe since 2000. An industrial engineer and multimedia designer, he began his practice in the visual arts in Guadeloupe, with his first monumental sculpture. Currently, she continues to produce and experiment with contemporary Caribbean art in numerous solo and group exhibitions. The International Slavery Museum in Liverpool (UK) has added his work to its permanent collection, joining the ACTe Memorial and other arts institutions.
ABOUT THE WORK: Prerequisite for decolonial discussion is an artistic project that aims to establish conditions of encounter and help in decolonial discussion, highlighting the archetypes and breaking points of this dialogue and providing elements of resolution. It affirms the essential bases of discussion of this debate, presenting them as “truths” to be assimilated, despite the violence inherent to this process.
The project is presented as a video installation, with two different films shown in an independent loop side by side. On both sides, people living in Guadeloupe (who have agreed to participate in this project) vehemently address truths of the decolonial discussion to the viewer. As the two films have different durations, the statements respond to other statements, placing the viewer in front of this decolonial confrontation, challenging their collective and personal identities. This work is part of the thematic narrative Transatlantic trafficking of enslaved people and its consequences today.
More about selected Artist: https://gerador.eu/leap/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOkz9ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeQ0slGcbXz7UWU8_0DoRQ6T-fjeawt_T4qHqRmy7Aa2WHCcy4RtOcjd6l2JY_aem_2Smyx6BvV30K_0Ug-GqGQg
More about the projeckt: LEAP – Pro Progressione
Through LEAP, we aim to contribute to building more inclusive European societies by confronting difficult histories and amplifying diverse voices. The project runs for 14 months and is co-funded by the European Union’s CERV programme.