Paulo Nazareth

The installation Ode to the Sovereignty of Africa, presented here in a reduced version, originally comprises a number of videos corresponding to the 54 internationally recognized sovereign states of the African continent, each represented by its national flag. In these videos, the flags – worn and weathered by time – flutter in the air, functioning both as emblems of the colonial legacy and as indicators of the fragility of the nation-state system inherited from Western powers, thereby articulating a critical reading of the political and economic relations between Africa and the West. Mounted on construction scaffolding poles, the flags point to a recurring line of inquiry in the artist’s practice: how boundaries drawn during the colonial era continue to shape global power dynamics and economic relations between these contexts, contributing significantly to the maintenance of European and Western prosperity and well-being. The formally recognized sovereignties, here evoked through national emblems, thus appear marked by a dual tension: on the one hand, the assertion of independence through anti-colonial struggles; on the other, the persistence of geopolitical structures that continue to condition their autonomy. From this perspective, the flags on display – consumed and deteriorated – emerge as material traces of a history of imposition and resistance, tied to rigidly defined borders that remain operative to this day.