The project MAKING PORTUGAL | Challenging the past. Patronage and agency of people of African birth or descent in early-modern arts and architecture in Portugal during the Transatlantic slave trade (1486-1836) (https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.12349.PEX) challenges the past. It challenges an idea, a narrative about the past. It questions the modern history of art and architecture, which, from the outset, denied people of African birth or descent and their communities the possibility of having actively participated in the construction of Portugal’s national heritage from the 16th to the 18th centuries, as patrons, sponsors, founders and creators.  

MAKING PORTUGAL sheds light on silences, reveals exclusions and restores names, actions and impacts to protagonists forgotten by the canonical narrative of historical knowledge. The focus shifts from the works to the people who, behind the scenes, brought them to life and financed them, yet whose faces and actions have been ignored and relegated to the shadows. By posing new questions, MAKING PORTUGAL has explored paths that have been little explored or entirely overlooked: Who was Vitória de Jesus, an enslaved Black woman, founder of a church and a convent? Who was José, an enslaved Black man, who built a small chapel? What was the impact of the construction of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Lisbon? Who commissioned the carving of the statue of Saint Benedict? Who commissioned the painting of Our Lady of the Rosary? Who invented new songs and performances?

This final seminar of the exploratory project MAKING PORTUGAL aims to share and discuss the research data, with a view to broadening and deepening future research, always in dialogue with civil society. It also aims to present the participatory education and citizen science experiences developed in collaboration with Amora Secondary School (Seixal), as potential sources of inspiration for other contexts and collaborations.

_{MAKING PORTUGAL: Challenging the past. Patronage and agency of people of African birth or descent in early-modern arts and architecture in Portugal during the Transatlantic slave trade (1486-1836), reference number 2023.12349.PEX, is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.12349.PEX}