Na Caminhu Pa Acácia

Janilda Bartolomeu received a grant for the development of a speculative audiovisual installation. Na Caminhu Pa Acácia departs from the Cape Verdean diaspora in Rotterdam and Dakar. Through four poetic parables — The Head, The Mountain, The Drum, The Fire — the work forges a collective imagination of the future-past within these communities. What does it mean for a collective to relearn how to imagine and to navigate forward from its own creative capacity? At its core is San Jon, a folk saint and diasporic figurehead who moves beyond the lines of Catholicism and is deeply entangled with local rituals, drums, and mountains of resistance. In our hands, he is more than a saint; he is the gatekeeper of the unknown. Na Caminhu Pa Acácia is an invitation to wonder, a cartography of memory and desire, built from contemporary parables, found footage, and new imagery. A cinematic landscape that moves between archive and future, between pilgrimage and projection.

Janilda is a researcher, filmmaker, and film programmer based in Rotterdam. Her practice moves within the domains of intangible heritage, (post)colonial spectralities, and speculation. Driven by her fascination with time, her work takes the form of diasporic cinema and film installations. Her approaches are relational in nature and poetic in expression. Her lens consciously withdraws from the extractive values of documentation and instead turns to projecting alternatives and activating possibilities. At present, her main research focuses on the Cape Verdean diaspora, their intangible heritage, and the archipelago they have cultivated worldwide. Bartolomeu has collaborated with Het Nieuwe Instituut, EYE Filmmuseum, RAW Material Company, and the Walk & Talk Biennial.