Through Pamina Sebastião’s artistic work and personal experience of trauma, we explore the concept of romantic love in the context of black lives and the history of colonialism and economics that result in transactional relationships. In this episode we discuss the social construction of love, affection and various forms of relationship such as polyamory, as well as notions of beauty at the intersection of race.


Pamina Sebastião is a multidisciplinary visual activist based in Luanda. Their work includes text, film, photography and collages, often centring their body as a medium-terrain from which to interrogate coloniality in Luanda’s context. They were a co-founder of the Arquivo de Identidade Angolano, a queer activist archive created in 2017; a member of Ondjango Feminista; part of the team of LINKAGES Angola project and an overall activist on gender in sexuality for many years focusing on stigma and discrimination as well in sexual and reproductive health and rights. Sebastião is also the creator of Só Belo Mesmo, a multimedia project launched in 2020, which engages the intersections of gender, race and sexuality in contemporary Angolan society influenced by colonialism and the coloniality of power.

Pamina Sebastião (Photo: Massalo Araújo)

01 Só Belo Mesmo