Dissemination

Gabriella Fontes Leite to present research on women’s urban archives at international conference at Sorbonne University

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Gabriella Fontes Leite, a collaborating researcher at CIAC – Research Centre for Arts and Communication, will participate in the international conference “Pratiques du commun” dans les lettres et les arts afro-luso-brésiliens/“Practices of the Common” in Afro-Luso-Brazilian Literature and the Arts, taking place on 16 and 17 November 2026 at Sorbonne University in Paris, France.

Organised by the Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Mondes Ibériques Contemporains (CRIMIC), the conference aims to explore the concept of the common in Afro-Luso-Brazilian literature and arts, addressing topics such as territorialities, peripheral geographies, body politics, community cinema, and collaborative practices of co-creation.

Interactive documentary as a women’s urban archive

Gabriella Fontes Leite will present her paper entitled “Fricções do comum afro-luso-brasileiro: o i-doc como arquivo urbano feminino em Coimbra” (Frictions of the Afro-Luso-Brazilian Common: The i-doc as a women’s urban archive in Coimbra), as part of her ongoing PhD research in Digital Media Art at the University of Algarve, under the supervision of Professors Sílvia Leiria Viegas and Gabriela Borges.

Her research focuses on the development of an interactive documentary (i-doc) entitled Nzila, created in collaboration with women of African descent living in Coimbra. The project seeks to understand how experiences, relationships, and historical differences between women from Portuguese-speaking African countries and Black Brazilian women contribute to the construction of the common within the urban space of Coimbra.

Drawing on Lélia Gonzalez’s concept of amefricanidade, in dialogue with the theoretical perspectives of Édouard Glissant and Jacques Rancière, the study examines the Afro-Luso-Brazilian common as a relational process shaped by encounters, tensions, and differences.

The interactive documentary Nzila uses co-creation practices, including shared walks and the collection of audiovisual, sound, and narrative materials, organised into georeferenced routes. Its interactive navigation allows users to explore the materials through different spatial, thematic, and narrative dimensions, without a fixed hierarchy, highlighting the diverse experiences and tensions between participants within the urban space of Coimbra.

At this stage, the research is still in development, with a pilot project involving two participants. This initial phase explores the potential and limitations of interactive documentary as a tool for memory, representation, and co-creation.

About the researcher

Gabriella Fontes Leite is a PhD candidate in Digital Media Art at the University of Algarve. She holds a degree in Architecture and Urbanism from UNEF (2020) and a Master’s degree in Integrated Urban Rehabilitation from the University of Coimbra (2023). Her research brings together digital media art, spatial justice, decoloniality, and intersectionality, with a particular focus on the experiences of migrant women and women of African descent in urban contexts.

She is also the co-author of an article published in the journal CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios (2025) and has conducted research on women’s mobility in Strasbourg and Coimbra.

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