... a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush… or maybe not?
Liliana Rocha is a Portuguese photographer and researcher specialising in photographic archives, visual culture, and heritage.
With a background in professional and artistic photography, since 2016 she has turned her attention to working with lost photographs that lie in forgotten archives. Her master’s thesis about an Angolan photographer working for the Portuguese government during colonial times reoriented her interest within the framework of postcolonial dialogues between Lusophone countries.
With a background in professional and artistic photography, since 2016 she has turned her attention to working with lost photographs that lie in forgotten archives. Her master’s thesis about an Angolan photographer working for the Portuguese government during colonial times reoriented her interest within the framework of postcolonial dialogues between Lusophone countries.
After travelling to Cape Verde and encountering the archipelago for the first time, for more than ten reasons, she decided to dedicate her work to the Creole islands. With the aim of investigating the dusty archives of former photographic studios and vernacular image practices in close engagement with their stories and people, in 2018 she enrolled in a PhD in anthropology, becoming a doctoral fellow of FCT – the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. Her thesis, titled Clichés Identitários em Mindelo: Um estudo antropológico sobre Cabo Verde a partir da Foto Melo (1890–1992), aims to demonstrate the historical and aesthetic significance of the archive of the first Cape Verdean photographer to open a studio in Cape Verde.
Currently, she pursues multiple lines of inquiry, seeking to contribute to the writing of a history of photography in Cape Verde and foregrounding the urgent need to safeguard this and other collections that remain largely unpublished and peripheral to dominant historical narratives. Focused on converging her interdisciplinary background and her passions, she works to bring photographic research, preservation of photographic heritage, and artistic interventions together.
EDUCATION
2025 - 2018
Institute of Social Sciences of the Universidade de Lisboa (ULisboa)
2017 - 2014
UTAD - School of Human and Social Sciences of the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro
2012 - 2009
Ar.Co - Centre for Art & Visual Communication, Lisbon (Portugal)
2010
Ar.Co - Centre for Art & Visual Communication, Lisbon (Portugal)
2008 - 2006
IPF - Portuguese Institute of Photography, Porto (Portugal)
2002 - 2006
Faculty of Arts and Humanities of University of Porto (U.Porto)
RESIDENCIES
2022 - 2023
Mindelo, São Vicente, Cabo Verde
Fieldwork residency
(supported by ICS - Institute of Social Sciences)
2021
Mindelo, São Vicente, Cabo Verde
Training abroad programme
(supported by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology)
2020 - 2021
Praia, Santiago, Cabo Verde
Fieldwork residency
(supported by ICS - Institute of Social Sciences)
2019 - 2020
Mindelo, São Vicente, Cabo Verde
Fieldwork residency
(supported by ICS - Institute of Social Sciences)
2013
Macau, China
Photography commissed project
Air Creative Communication Agency
AWARDS / GRANTS
2024 - 2018
Doctoral Fellowship,
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)