António Cruz is a native of the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa.  He migrated to Brazil, Minas Gerais, in 2015, where he completed his undergraduate, master's and doctorate degrees in Ecology, conservation and wildlife management and discovered photography as a form of expression. He currently lives in Luxembourg and has been directing much of his photographic research to understand the personal and collective processes related to Cape Verdean and African immigration in the world, the forced climate migration.

Cape Verde is an archipelago made up of 10 small islands, discovered by the Portuguese in 1460. Its first inhabitants were forcibly displaced migrants, enslaved peoples from the west coast of Africa, alongside Europeans.

This archipelago has always been arid in nature and marked by difficult living conditions. Such conditions hindered not only its colonization, but also the permanence and settlement of its population across the islands. Due to the scarcity of resources, many families found emigration to be an inevitable solution.

Investigating the ramifications of this phenomenon can be deeply valuable in helping us understand both collective and individual questions connected to the complexity of migration.

A visual journey of discovery and survival, confronting the questions carried by every immigrant within the ongoing conflict of belonging, acceptance, and identity, a landscape where you are, at once, both an outsider and part of a complex geopolitical reality.

This project reflects on the condition of immigrants in the post-refugee-crisis era of 2024: the vestiges left behind, the wanderers crossing oceans and borders, much like myself in Luxembourg. It emerges from conversations with immigrants that became translations of my own daily reflections, awareness, dreams, and nightmares, the emotional terrain of adapting while also feeling alienated, isolated, profoundly different, yet deeply connected to Cabo Verde in a foreign land.

At its core, this is a story about roots, the adventure of living, and the search for traces that lead back to oneself.

Editor: Roberta Tavares 

For more details, contact António Cruz - cruzony@gmail.com