Anna Nunes

À Volta do Barro is an international project centred on female heritage, clay, and repair in postcolonial contexts. Working across Cape Verde, São Tomé, Portugal, and the Netherlands, it brings visibility to ceramic traditions carried by women across generations. Through workshops, installations, and collaborations with local communities, the project explores clay as a medium of resistance, care, and collective memory. À Volta do Barro reflects on the impact of colonial processes on gender and tradition, and opens space for transmission, recognition, and new forms of cultural continuity.

O Mundo Imaginário arose from the question: what happens when girls are invited into games traditionally reserved for boys? In São Tomé, a temporary space was created where children could rethink roles through play, movement, and imagination. For the first time, girls participated in the local tábua game — a bodyboard-based tradition shaped by boys. Presented at the São Tomé Biennial, the installation combined paintings and a tábua crafted by the generation that first developed the game. The work reflects on gender, colonial legacy, and play as a powerful tool for collective imagination and social shift.

Tabua by Derley Camble, part of the installation O mundo imaginario.

The Coloniality of Gender is a research-based art project exploring how colonial histories continue to shape gender roles and childhood in post-independence São Tomé. Rooted in the village of Santana, the project responds to gendered patterns in everyday life through O Mundo Imaginário — a participatory initiative that creates shared spaces for play, imagination, and learning. The project unfolds in drawings, bronze sculptures, video, and large-scale paintings on raw linen, offering subtle yet transformative visions of girlhood, presence, and new forms of relation shaped through collective memory and embodied storytelling.

The Coloniality of Gender is a research-based art project exploring how colonial histories continue to shape gender roles and childhood in post-independence São Tomé. Rooted in the village of Santana, the project responds to gendered patterns in everyday life through O Mundo Imaginário — a participatory initiative that creates shared spaces for play, imagination, and learning. The project unfolds in drawings, bronze sculptures, video, and large-scale paintings on raw linen, offering subtle yet transformative visions of girlhood, presence, and new forms of relation shaped through collective memory and embodied storytelling.

The Coloniality of Gender is a research-based project on the ongoing effects of colonial gender structures in daily life in São Tomé. During several residencies, Anna collaborated with SOMA, a local organisation for gender equality. Through dialogue, observation, and workshops, she explored how inequality manifests in play, care, education, and social roles. The project laid the groundwork for her later work with children and her current installations exploring gender and tradition.