'O Barco/The Boat' is an installation composed of 140 blocks (6 of which are exhibited in 'Fragile Crossings') that form the silhouette of the bottom of a ship and carefully draw the space created to accommodate the bodies of millions of Africans, enslaved by European empires. In the Western imaginary, a boat is easily associated with glory, freedom and maritime expansion, described as “discoveries,” but, in the artist's view, “a continent with millions of people cannot be discovered” nor “one of the longest and most horrendous chapters of humanity—Slavery—can be erased.”

This first large-scale installation by Grada Kilomba, which in its first iteration stretches 32 meters along the Tagus river, invites the audience to enter a garden of memory, in which poems rest on burnt wooden blocks, recalling forgotten stories and identities. What stories are told? Where are they told? How are they told? And told by whom? These are questions that arise when entering this installation.