What happens when female heritage is lost — and what does it mean to bring it back to life?

À Volta do Barro investigates how colonial processes have fractured gender relations and disrupted intergenerational knowledge — and how this knowledge can be re-embodied, shared, and made visible today.
At its core lies the female-led clay tradition from Cape Verde, São Tomé, and the diaspora — a practice rooted in collective care, ecological balance, and social equality, suppressed through slavery and colonisation.
In this project, clay becomes a medium of resistance and reconnection — a form of living heritage that carries memory, and links bodies, histories, and landscapes.
Through residencies, workshops, and participatory processes, À Volta do Barro collaborates with heritage bearers to revive techniques, reawaken memory, and pass on embodied knowledge.
The project travels between Lisbon, Boa Vista, São Tomé, and Rotterdam — places where clay, diaspora, and remembrance converge.
In 2024, a first exchange took place with potter Isabel Sanches (Trás di Munti, Cape Verde). In 2025, Anna worked with the ceramic community of Rabil (Boa Vista), and this autumn a collaboration takes place with Verhalenhuis Belvédère in Rotterdam.