When the concentration camp was built in 1936 Cape Verde—off the coast of West Africa—was a Portuguese colony. The direct order came from Portuguese dictator Antonio Oliveira Salazar for the construction of the camp to house political prisoners in the small village of Tarrafal. The camp became known as the ‘camp of slow death’.
In 1949, Pina’s grandfather Guilherme da Costa Carvalho—a young communist militant— was sent to the camp. Later that year Guilherme’s parents were granted unprecedented permission to visit their son and using a Rolleiflex camera they photographed all the living prisoners and the graves of the ones who had died in the camp. This extensive visual record—the only one ever made inside the concentration camp—was created with the intent of reporting back to the families of the other prisoners held in the camp or had died there.
Seventy years later, in 2019, Pina began investigating a box in his family archive containing the negatives, contact sheets, vintage prints of these pictures made inside the camp, along with related letters and telegrams sent from his grandfather.
‘None of this would have been possible without the immense courage, organisational capacity and sense of historical justice that my Great-Grandfather Luiz Alves de Carvalho had to create these images and save the Tarrafal archives. These qualities were directly inherited by his grand-daughter, Herculana Carvalho, my mother, who one day told me that she had this Pandora’s box saved for the day I wanted to open it.’
In response to this valuable and unique archive Pina began producing his own photographic work around the camp—researching, interviewing and recording stories of both anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggles. His photographs document his travels to what is left of the camp in Cape Verde and also portraits and testimonies of former African political prisoners. In Tarrafal these new images are combined with Pina’s letters to his grandfather, inspired by his discoveries. Collaborating both with former political prisoners, historians and Cape Verdean families who provided tremendous help to political prisoners, Pina has brought these images and an unknown history back to light.
‘This year, when Portugal is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution and democracy, ‘Tarrafal’ will be an important point of reference contributing to the dialogue about the country’s past and its colonial legacy. In our current moment in history in which new populist waves are deeply polarizing societies, it is important to have a document that helps us understand the consequences of the lived past and the challenges we have ahead of us.’
Tarrafal is a continuation of over 20 years’ work by Pina addressing issues of historical memory and human rights violations.
