The Monument of the discoveries is a nationalist monument commissioned by Antonio De Oliveira Salazar. It is located in Lisbon where the first ships in the 15th century departed and points towards the South, the continent of Africa: the direction the first ‘discoverers’ set sail to. It represents a romanticised idealisation of the Portuguese exploration that was archetypal of the Estado Novo regime. As the monument celebrates the age of discovery, it also embodies a less romantic history of colonisation and exploitation. Where the original monument, made in monumental white stone, manifests a legacy of oppression, we propose ‘The Displaced Monument’: a simplified model of the original fascist colossus, made In cork. By displacing the monument we aim to acknowledge Portugal’s colonial past as well as raising questions about a post-colonial world.
