Uliano Lucas' exhibition «Revolutions—Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Portugal (1969-1974)» tells the story of a journey made up of several journeys. The photographs in it—some unpublished, others published in Italy in photographic catalogues in the 1970s or in European magazines and newspapers of the time—are just a sample of Uliano Lucas' vast collection of images on this subject.

The exhibition is divided into three parts corresponding to three territories photographed by Uliano Lucas between 1969 and 1974: the first section, entitled Guinea-Bissau, 1969, brings together some of the photos taken on the mission that took him to the "liberated zones" of Guinea, at the request of the PAIGC; the second section - Angola, 1972 - includes images of the daily life of the MPLA's male and female guerrillas; the third and final section is entitled Portugal, 1972 and 1974 and portrays aspects of daily life in the country during the final period of the dictatorship (1972) and the days of celebration of the Revolution (1974).

Uliano Lucas' photographs are being exhibited for the first time in Brasilia. There is no more fitting occasion than the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 25 April Revolution and the independence of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe. Published today, Uliano Lucas' photographs contribute to short-circuiting the memory of pasts that marked the history of the 20th century, bringing them back to the present.

About the photographer
Photojournalist Uliano Lucas (born 1942) grew up in Milan, where he studied at the 'Rinascita' schools and, from an early age, frequented the Brera district's atmosphere of artists and intellectuals. In his first photographs, the protagonist is the city of Milan, particularly the artistic life (of writers, musicians, painters) in the 1960s and 1970s.

1968 will be a crucial year for the Italian photojournalist. Hence, concern for the political commitment that he would never abandon emerged, a commitment reflected in his reporting - portraying the student and worker protests of those years. Reports on liberation movements marked the following period: the photographer set sail, often on his own initiative, for the African continent and his work was published in German and French magazines, since in Italy - with a few exceptions, such as L'Espresso or Vie Nuove - no newspaper was particularly interested in publishing political photographs depicting guerrilla warfare, daily life in the jungle, the struggle for freedom, the birth of new democracies.

It was in the summer of 1969 that Uliano Lucas, together with journalist Bruno Crimi (1939-2006), travelled to the liberated areas of Guinea-Bissau. The report was published in various newspapers (in particular in the weekly Vie Nuove) and in the book Guinea Bissau: una rivoluzione africana, published in 1970 by Vangelista in Milan (with texts by Bruno Crimi and photos by Uliano Lucas).

Uliano Lucas will subsequently travel around the African continent - Algeria, Tunisia, Tanzania, Congo, Mozambique, Zambia, Ethiopia, Eritrea... - following the processes of decolonisation and then the problems, realities, and transformations in these countries. It will also address violence in psychiatric institutions in Italy, denouncing the situation, as well as the phenomenon of migration in northern Europe.

From the 1990s onwards, in addition to reporting on countries at war - a case in point being the reportage during the conflict in Yugoslavia - he documented the transformations in daily life and in the world of work in major Italian cities such as Turin, Milan, and Genoa and in some regions in particular (such as Puglia, Abruzzo and Veneto), and then devoted himself to issues related to emigration and immigration.

https://www.ulianolucas.it/

Exhibition Credits
Curator | Elisa Alberani, Miguel Cardina, Vincenzo Russo
Iconographic Research | Tatiana Agliani - Archivio Uliano Lucas (Asti)
Post-Production of Photographs | Cristina Gramegna - Studio De Stefanis (Milan)

The exhibition is organised by the Portuguese Embassy in Brazil, the Italian Embassy in Brazil, and Camões Centro Cultural Português Brasília, in partnership with the Angolan Embassy in Brazil, the Guinea-Bissau Embassy in Brazil, the Institute of Letters of the University of Brasília UnB, and the António Lobo Antunes Chair (University of Milan/Camões, IP). The exhibition is supported by the Delegation of the European Union to Brazil and co-organised by the Uliano Lucas Archive, the António Lobo Antunes Chair at the University of Milan, the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra (through the CROME project and the "50 years of April" initiative) and the Italian Institute of Culture in Lisbon.