“I, who am going to die, wanted to say this”: archives of an urban cartography in Ubi sunt by Manuel de Freitas and murals by Mariana Duarte Santos

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of the book Ubi sunt (2019), by the poet Ma­nuel de Freitas, placed in dialogue with murals painted in the neighborhood called Dois de Maio, in Lisbon, by the Portuguese visual artist Mariana Duarte Santos. The main question that drives the reading is the relation between indi­vidual and collective archives and the production of art in and about the city. The multiple networks of meanings that are created in contemporary times from the city’s remains establish an ethics that permeates the relationships woven in urban space. The complex relations and interactions between the material and the immaterial of the city establish an intricate network that affects those who inhabit and transit its spaces, transforming it and being transformed by it in a game in which visibility and invisibility take place. The meanings and complexity of subjects and spaces that articulate different times are discussed, as well as the fragmentary character of the urban and its relation with the production of art. Reflections by Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Celia Pedrosa et al contribute to the reading, as they study in different ways study the connections between archive and memory, providing the basis for the analyses proposed here.