The Presence of an Absent Thing

The Presence of an Absent Thing investigates how the memory of the Portuguese colonial project endures in contemporary Guinea-Bissau, exploring space and everyday practices as forms of resistance to a past that remains implicit.

The Presence of an Absent Thing is an ongoing project that investigates the relationship between memory, space, and resistance in Guinea-Bissau, taking Portuguese colonial architecture as a point of departure. Through photography, the project seeks to understand how space, ruins, and everyday practices reveal both the persistence of a colonial past and the emergence of new uses and meanings. Drawing on Ricoeur’s (2004) notion of implicit memory and Ann Laura Stoler’s (2013) concepts of ruins and imperial debris, colonial architecture is conceived not as a static vestige but as an active presence of the portuguese colonial project that continues to shape the present. Ruins are seen here not as inert remains, but as processes of ruination—material and symbolic inheritances that mold lives, practices, and modes of inhabiting space. When reappropriated by communities, these spaces become expressions of everyday, silent resistance. The project also questions whether this “absent thing”, meaning formal and implicit expressions of colonialism, are truly absent, or whether its presence persists in subtle, embedded forms and its appropriation is a form of everyday resistance. Combining photographic and ethnographic practices, the project approaches photography not merely as documentation but as a means of rendering visible the “off-frame” of official narratives. By constructing a critical visual archive, The Presence of an Absent Thing seeks to reflect on space as both a support for memory and a platform for counter-narratives in response to the colonial legacy.

This project was carried out using analog photography with a medium-format camera mounted on a tripod, emphasizing slow, deliberate image-making, reflecting the temporal and material presence of the spaces documented. Particular care was taken to avoid exoticizing or extractivist approaches to the imagery, striving instead to represent the territory and its inhabitants with sensitivity, respect, and critical awareness of historical and social contexts.