Curatorial platform · Paris – Lisboa

Contemporary Lusophone art, through an Atlantic lens.

Artists from Africa, Europe and their diasporas, presented, accompanied and brought into circulation.

First public act

Amadeo Carvalho at AKAA – Also Known As Africa
Carreau du Temple, Paris · 23–25 October 2026

Discover

Retratos de Ausência, ensemble of works on paper by Amadeo Carvalho — *Retratos de Ausência*, works on paper, 21 × 29,7 cm each. © Amadeo Carvalho. Courtesy of the artist and Casa Vicência.

About

Casa Vicência is a curatorial platform dedicated to contemporary Lusophone art. It reads the Atlantic as a space of passage, memory and reinvention, and works with artists to give their practice a lasting presence in Europe.

Curation

Exhibitions and fair presentations conceived as chapters of a long-term cycle.

Collaboration

Projects built with artists and their galleries, within a clear contractual framework.

Circulation

Connections between artists, collectors, institutions and press across the Lusophone Atlantic.

The cycle

Atlântica

A curatorial cycle unfolding in chapters, each devoted to an artist or a territory of the Portuguese-speaking Atlantic.

CHAPTER I Fragments d'identité, Circulations lusophones AKAA Paris · October 2026

The curator

Émilie Silva

Founder and curator of Casa Vicência, Émilie Silva is a lawyer admitted to the Paris and Lisbon bars, born to Cape Verdean parents, and engaged in building cultural bridges between Europe and the Afro-diasporic world.

She is the author and director of Cesária Évora, Portraits of an Icon, presented along the Seine riverbanks in Paris in 2025 with the City of Paris and the Théâtre de la Ville. Her practice is rooted in cultural and heritage diplomacy, where art becomes a space of transmission, legacy and circulation across continents.

Casa Vicência extends that work into the curatorial field, with a double standard of rigour: the precision of the narrative, and the precision of the frameworks, legal, contractual and patrimonial, within which artworks circulate.

Atlântica · Chapter I

Fragments d'identité

Circulations lusophones

Amadeo Carvalho – Retratos de Ausência

A project conceived by Casa Vicência in collaboration with the artist.

Portrait of Amadeo Carvalho — Amadeo Carvalho, portrait. Courtesy of the artist and Casa Vicência.

For his first Paris fair, Cape Verdean artist Amadeo Carvalho presents Retratos de Ausência, a series in which absence takes form. The fragment is held as both loss and generative force: the place where new forms of belonging emerge, through creoleness.

Canvases in acrylic and volcanic pigments ground from the lava of the Fogo volcano, alongside an ensemble of portraits on paper. The territory is not depicted: it is physically present in the work.

« I often begin with the portrait, but I do not understand it merely as the representation of a figure. For me, the face is a sensitive territory. »

« Parto muitas vezes do retrato, mas não o entendo apenas como representação de uma figura. Para mim, o rosto é um território sensível. »

Amadeo Carvalho, artist statement, 2026

Sentinela do Fogo by Amadeo Carvalho — *Sentinela do Fogo*
110 × 150 cm · 2026

Herança do silêncio by Amadeo Carvalho — *Herança do silêncio*
110 × 150 cm · 2026

O lado que falta by Amadeo Carvalho — *O lado que falta*
100 × 120 cm · 2026

Ansiedade branca by Amadeo Carvalho — *Ansiedade branca*
100 × 120 cm · 2025

In the studio

The works are made in London, Portugal and Cape Verde.

Amadeo Carvalho painting in his studio — Studio view, works in progress for AKAA 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Casa Vicência.

Detail of a work in progress — Work in progress, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Casa Vicência.

Works on paper

Fifty portraits, multiple presences.

At AKAA, sixteen portraits from the series Retratos de Ausência are framed and hung as a grid: acrylic and volcanic pigments from the Fogo volcano on Fabriano paper, 21 × 29,7 cm each.

Each face emerges through colour and volcanic matter, keeping its own presence while entering into dialogue with the others. The complete ensemble of fifty is available on the booth.

Request the catalogue