South Circular is a research video project that builds a narrative around the former Lisbon Military Road and reflects urbanism, immigration and decolonization processes.

The video develops a narrative between reality and fiction as a journey that traces, like an archaeological search, the landscape of the former Military Road of Lisbon. Built around the city in the 19th century, it rescues the memories of fragile and lost places in the peripheries of contemporary Lisbon.

In the past, this road was used to protect Lisbon against French and English invasions. Currently, part of this road has disappeared, but in what remains, it extends for 45 km around the city and is occupied by social, council and self build houses from Caxias to Loures, and also on the other side of the Tagus River in Almada and Monte Caparica.

The road today continues to be a kind of border that 'protects' the city against foreign invasions. It prevents a significant number of immigrants and Africans from entering the heart of the city, forcing them to remain on the outskirts of Lisbon at its limits - in the limbo of city life. This work has many layers, as it refers to a place in Lisbon that is related to other geographies and brings history into a territory that calls for a reflection of decolonial processes connected to the liberation movement in Africa. A process that is located in Europe in contemporary Lisbon, calls for a reflection on the impact of that history had on the formation of the invisible urbanism of Lisbon. Places that are still invisible and that are still places of resistance, struggle, and power.

History is reversed and re-written through inverting the process and representation of those excluded places. They are recreated then as places of belonging for those who inhabited and constructed this other city. Decolonisation of the western epistemology and preconceived statements of what should be true of constructed historical facts.

Sound design by Soundslikenuno (Chullage)
Produced and supported by MAAT, Portugal

Production Format: HD video, double split screen

Language: Portuguese (English subtitles)