An unstable research platform for attempting to rewrite Os Lusíadas using experimental writing and knowledge sources from former colonies’ authors, its diaspora and other de-colonial thinkers or makers.
If you want to participate in the project, or provide any feedback, thoughts, or complaints, please email mariana@mardrew.art.
theoretical grounds
This is where I explain the foundation of the project, why and how I am working on it.
resources
This is a collection of different resources: techniques for experimental writing, sites of research, found and unsorted artifacts, people I want to be in conversation with, and possible funding for the project.
a small experimental writing library of my own
excavation sites
A collection of spaces for further research: sites
finds
A collection of dug artifacts waiting to be sorted: finds
artifacts
A collection of content I have sorted already and would like to use either theoretically or in the rewriting itself: https://os-tugas.mardrew.art/artifacts Some of the content is annotated already, other is not. The best way to navigate is by tags:** https://os-tugas.mardrew.art/tags, by using the node graph, or just delving into a random artifact.
ideal external partners
Tavares Cebola, Grada Kilomba, Sandim Mendes, Mariana Aboim, Clara Amaral, Patricia Kaersenhout, Catarina Simão, Ana Balona de Oliveira, …
funding options
https://www.cgd.pt/Institucional/Caixa-Cultura/Pages/Caixa-Cultura.aspx
https://gulbenkian.pt/apoios-lista/apoio-a-criacao-artistica/
http://livro.dglab.gov.pt/sites/DGLB/Portugues/BolsasCriacaoLiteraria/Paginas/Apoios.aspx https://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/gc24/comunicacao/comunicado?i=ministerio-da-cultura-lanca-bolsas-anuais-de-criacao-literaria-2025
thought log
This is where I share my thoughts throughout the process of making.
05/04/2025
Possible names “Os Tugas”, “Desenterro”, “Época nada épica”, … I am quite overwhelmed specially after reading Atlantica - contemporary art from Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and their Diásporas. I have a huge amount of references just from the West coast, and it feels like I am falling down a rabbit hole, with no longer signs of light. Maybe that’s good. But not good for the limited time I have. I started writing the Proposition, and have done 2 stanzas so far (2/1102 - 0.018% of the original). It’s not as hard to do as I thought it would be. Having to make it decasyllabic (which does not mean 10 syllables) increases the complexity and time consumption, but it’s actually quite fun. I had a meeting with Mariana (see ^meeting-1) and with Sandim (see ^meeting-1), and have realised I should immediately write about it rather than weeks after, everything is quite foggy now. In the two current stanzas, I used Poetics of Relation, Cães de raça, Maçonaria, Povo no poder and Canto I. I refrained from using Memórias da plantação, which I was prepared to do, as I want to contact the artist regarding this use first. I am unsure on what to do in situations where the artists have already passed away. For the sake of prototyping and having a somewhat a proof of concept of what I am trying to do, for better understanding, I have used the mentioned references - not publicly available. I am thinking now I don’t want to use sources (in english e.g.) that are not translated, or sources that are not in Portuguese or ex-colony/diaspora languages. It’s too much work to be a translator as well, and having to consider my role as such, while at the same time having a whole underground world of Lusophonic resources worth exploring. I want to focus on this undergroundness. English and other work of course can serve me as theoretical basis.
Last note, on a nice sentence: “to reinsert the history of colonisation into the history of our country”, as a thought on the role of the book regarding Joacine’s thoughts (see ^return-colonial-pain-to-its-thinkers).
26/03/2025
Canto I is divided in Proposition, Invocation and Dedication. When thinking of following the same structure, I wonder what would be Proposition, Invocation and Dedication. For instance:
Proposition: to deconstruct the celebrated narratives of colonialism, to come to terms with our own history, to recognise ourselves in the mistakes of the past, to encourage the country to make reparations, and ultimately to prompt the transformation of our collective identity.
Invocation: To all the writers, artists, revolutionaries, and thinkers—living and dead—whose words dismantle these celebrated narratives and dream beyond its ruins
Dedication: to the erased, the insurgent, the resistance, the anti-colonial figures, such as Amílcar Cabral, to freedom, to those who contribute to the rhizome, to women, to those who refuse worship to the “Great Men”.
14/03/2025
A few nice sentences I gathered. Identity (and national identity) as something that is formed through encounters rather than through a stable, self-contained essence.
“We clamor for the right to opacity” — Édouard Glissant (Resisting the expectation that all meaning must be extracted and flattened into colonial logic)
Have a role as a weaver, not an author, tying threads others have spined.
My role isn’t to “make sense” but to architect a space where the own idea of sense can be contested.
13/03/2025
Research question draft 1: How can experimental writing deconstruct the celebrated narratives of colonialism that define Portuguese national identity? Here “celebrated narratives of colonialism” include Os Lusíadas. Does the question pertain to the idea of pride associated with colonialism? and does it associate this pride with a foundation for a national identity?
Sub-questions:
- How are narratives of colonialism celebrated within Portuguese culture?
- What is national identity (a nation) and how does it relate to these narratives?
- Nation as defined per myth (Homi K. Bhabha, Nation as Narration)
- How do epic poems solidify the myth? (Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics)
- Saudade and the case for Portugal (The Power and Limits of Cultural Myths in Portugal’s Search for a Post-Imperial Role, Bruno C. Reis and Pedro A. Oliveira; # “Portugality”: a nothingness that is nothing, E. Lourenço; Eduardo Lourenço – an analysis of the Portuguese destiny, E. Lourenço, and such…)
- What is experimental writing and how can it be applied as tool in this context?
- Can experimental writing be rhizomatic?
11/03/2025
Portuguese national identity is still insanely fragile, grasping to breath through the ruthless claws of a fallen empire, it clings to colonialism to beg for an existence as a collective -the lack of imagination in who could we be if not conquerors, navigators, and intricately connected to a sea of bodies cries in our shores. We look to the richness as expansion and materiality, and so we have been bottomlessly tripping since the 1400s. Epic poems (Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics) are the spontaneous vomit of a falling empire in desperation to form a cohesive identity. It then makes sense that Os Lusíadas is still the pinnacle of Portuguese literature. Ultimately, Os Lusíadas is a project of myth-making haunted by the very failure it tries to suppress. The question then remains, how can Portugal rewrite itself beyond the empire? And further, how can it rewrite itself rhizomaticaly (Poetics of Relation) - through rupture and its diaspora.
28/02/2025
After getting some feedback yesterday, I am now certain that rewriting this book has to mean using exactly the same structure, syllable count, verses, stanzas. Rewriting it into a different structure means using it as bibliography, as reference, for a new work. That’s not the point. The point is a cancellation of the original, a retelling of our history, of what actually happened and its contemporary consequences, a database for black lusophone literature. A big part of Os Lusíadas success comes from its pedantic, and daunting structure - the fact that someone decided to write so much and for so long in this structure is seen as a great feat. How can I strip it of its enchantment if I don’t follow the same structure? It leaves room for doubts, it leaves room to say “yes, okay you can criticise it, but Os Lusíadas is still a beacon of national identity for it’s epic poem structure”. I realised I want massive collaboration as well. Not just for me to rewrite it by myself, but to have actual contemporary ex-col/diaspora voices rewriting it as well. To have different languages - Badiu, Kimbundu (that originates many “slang” words in portuguese), papiamento, … as many as possible. As many authors as possible, writers, poets, rappers, musicians, film makers, visual artists, anyone … Os Lusíadas 2 is a terrible name. Looking for others. I want to talk about a huge variety of topics and origins, and not a linear journey. Not a journey like in the original. Food origins, Music, Fado, Kuduro, Language, Erasure, Names, Dance, Money, Gods/Myths, Revolts, Defeats and Successes… Which characters can I have? Who is the villain, who is the hero, who are the gods and the muses?
26/02/2025
I feel like there has to be an overarching narrative, and this is preventing me from starting with the material. Reading everything first, rather than just doing. For fear of bad results. Thinking that there has to be a connection between the meaning of each chapter and the sources I use. Or that I have to somewhat follow the chapters, and what that means. What my position as the writer means, also scares me.