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Diari Valencià

Valencia Hosts Cultural Cycle to Uncover Black Memory and Challenge Silences

The 'Cartographies of Black Memory' program includes theater, urban routes, and research to recover marginalized histories.

Generic image of a presentation room or library with a microphone and empty chairs.
IA

Generic image of a presentation room or library with a microphone and empty chairs.

The city of Valencia will host, over the coming months, «Cartographies of Black Memory», a pioneering cultural cycle dedicated to making visible the history and presence of Black people in the city, challenging the narratives that have silenced it.

This initiative, combining theater, mediated urban routes, research, and archiving, seeks to restore to public spaces the stories that have been systematically relegated. Specifically, guided tours through Valencia's historic center aim to recover, for the first time, the presence of Black people and the spaces linked to enslavement, reconstructing a memory that, despite always being present, was never given its rightful place.
The cycle is promoted by Deborah Ekoka, an Afro-centered cultural manager and mediator, and ISCOD (Trade Union Institute for Development Cooperation), within the framework of the Educational Program for Social Transformation in favor of racial diversity in education, funded by the Generalitat Valenciana.
The activity began with the play Blackface y otras vergüenzas (Blackface and Other Shames), by Silvia Albert Sopale, an actress, creator, and cultural activist, known for No es país para negras (No Country for Black Women) and one of the most relevant voices in Afro-descendant theater in Spain. The play addresses the practice of blackface and its roots in the Spanish context, offering a critical review of cultural representations that have contributed to ridiculing the Afro-descendant population.
City routes, named «Valencia Negra y musulmana» (Black and Muslim Valencia), will take place on April 30 (5:00 PM), May 16 (11:00 AM), and May 28 (11:00 AM). These routes are the first to traverse Valencia's historic center to recover the presence of Black people, including the places where they lived, their forms of organization—such as the Brotherhood of the Negritos—and other spaces linked to enslavement that allow for the reconstruction of a historically invisible memory.
The tour begins at L'ETNO – Museu Valencià d'Etnologia (La Beneficència), where an introduction to ESCIF's installation Catálogo de vallas (Catalog of Fences) will be given, focusing on physical and symbolic borders. Mediation will be led by Deborah Ekoka, with the collaboration of Jesús Cosano, researcher and writer, and Esther García Ejome, specialist in Afro-descendant thought. At L'ETNO, Jesús Cosano will present Teresa Terry, la negra del Puerto de Santa María (Teresa Terry, the Black Woman of Puerto de Santa María), a work that delves into the African footprint in peninsular history through the character of Teresa Terry and the context of the enslaved people trade in the Modern Age. Admission is free.
Journalist and researcher Tania Safura Adam will present on June 5 at L'ETNO Archivos negros y comunidades de memoria: prácticas para habitar el pasado en el presente (Black Archives and Memory Communities: Practices for Inhabiting the Past in the Present), an exploration of how Black communities have preserved their memory outside of institutions. The day will conclude with a recital by Equatorial Guinean poet César Brandon Ndjocu at 6:00 PM. The cycle will culminate with a celebration framed within the commemoration of Afro-descendant and African Women's Day, details of which will be announced soon.

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