In the midst of general silence about the life stories of African people and their descendants in the Iberian Peninsula, the research project Espanya Negra: viatge cap a la negritud en l'espai-temps (Black Spain: A Space-Time Journey to Negritude) speaks out for the existence of stories trapped in documents, in literature, in music, in the domestic sphere, in orality, and in a great variety of elements of popular culture from the fifteenth century through to the present day. These materials are part of the constant process of creating the Arxiu Negre (Black Files).

In this experimental presentation, Tania Safura Adam and Adeline Flaun summon up the rescued files and call upon ancestral witnesses to breathe life back into stories, events, moments, and personalities. Histories are superimposed and time collapsed to show similarities in Black lives from the fifteenth century through to the present day. Their interpretations of voices of real witnesses reveal a spiral of silence, oppression, and violence, but also of agency and resilience.

• Research: Espanya Negra.
• Direction and dramaturgy: Adeline Flaun.
• Sound and image: Tania Safura Adam.
• Performers: Miquel Ripeu, Amada Tinoco, with the voice of Yolanda Sikara.

Espanya Negra is a networked research project of diverse institutions: ARTIUM in Vitoria-Gasteiz, IVAM in València, MNCARS in Madrid, the CCCB in Barcelona and ENAR (European Network Against Racism). Part of the File can be seen during the Manifesta 15 Biennial at the head office of the publisher Gustau Gili, with the title Arxius Negres: Fragments d’una metròpoli anticolonial (Black Files: Fragments of an Anticolonial Metropolis).