The exhibition "Between the Dove and the Eagle:The Holy Spirit Festivities in New England" is currently on display at the Azorean Autonomy Center. This project, curated by Catarina Faria, was prepared by the Carlos Machado Museum with the support of the Regional Directorate for Communities.

"This photographic exhibition seeks to offer the opportunity to immerse oneself in the richness of the festivities in North American lands and to broaden the perspective on this ritual phenomenon as living heritage — one that gains new life and meaning as it circulates through the diaspora and encounters new human, cultural, and social landscapes." – Catarina Faria (curator)

The exhibition can be visited on Sundays throughout the month of July, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

BETWEEN THE DOVE AND THE EAGLE — THE HOLY GHOST FEASTS IN NEW ENGLAND

As part of a research project* funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology and the Regional Directorate for Communities (Azores), between 2011 and 2012, Catarina Faria, an anthropologist and researcher at the Center for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), travelled across the Atlantic to the East Coast of the United States of America, aiming to map the Holy Ghost feasts in New England. She journeyed across the region’s states from North to South, developing an exhaustive collection of ethnographic and historical data on the feasts and gathering a vast set of written and audiovisual records.

In 2019, Catarina Faria, a daughter and granddaughter of São Miguel natives and raised in Ponta Delgada, designed an exhibition titled Espírito Santo Migrante (Migrant Holy Ghost), kindly hosted by the Carlos Machado Museum. With it, the curator fulfilled her desire to bring to a wider audience, and specifically to the Azoreans living on the islands, the result of extensive work carried out within the scope of the aforementioned project, and through this, to reveal part of the history of the Azoreans from both sides of the Atlantic.

Espírito Santo Migrante was structured in two parts:

The first focused on the origins of the Holy Ghost feasts and their paths of journey from the Azores to the Azorean diaspora on the A catalogue was designed following the exhibition’s narrative, enabling a deeper understanding of its contents. Between the Dove and the Eagle - The Holy Ghost feasts in New England, presents some of the photographs that were featured on the second part of Espírito Santo Migrante. This photographic exhibition aims to provide the opportunity to delve into the richness of the feasts in North America, and broaden the perspective on this ritual phenomenon as a living heritage, which acquires new lives and meanings while circulating in the diaspora and encountering new human, cultural and social landscapes.

The Holy Ghost feasts in New England seek to reproduce the various ritual stages of the festivities in their homelands, as these become, for the Azoreans and their descendants, a privileged means of connecting with their roots and their cultural heritage and Azorean identity. On the one hand, the feasts play a fundamental role in creating bonds and support networks between compatriots, and in affirming an Azorean identity in the multicultural North American society. On the other hand, they also reflect the connection to the American culture to which they belong and which has brought new dynamics and elements to the rituals, such as the figure of the queen and the misses in the main processions and rituals.

The exhibition comes to life in this landscape made of paradoxes, where the dove meets the eagle.

*Between 2010 and 2014, a research project called “Ritual, Ethnicity, Transnationalism: the Holy Ghost feasts in North America” was carried out, coordinated by Professor João Leal and with the collaboration of a group of researchers in the area of   Social Sciences, belonging to the Center for Research in Anthropology (CRIA) and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, with funding from the entities mentioned above.

CURATOR’S BIOGRAPHY

Catarina Faria is an anthropologist, with a graduation from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCSH-UNL), and who holds a master’s degree in Visual Cultures from the same university. She also graduated in Photography from the Center for Art and Visual Communication (Ar.Co) in Lisbon. She held a research fellowship twice at the Center for Research in Anthropology (CRIA) as part of the research project “Ritual, Ethnicity, Transnationalism: The Holy Ghost feasts in North America”. As a research fellow of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), she took part in the Doctoral Program in Anthropology: Policies and Images of Culture and Museology, promoted by FCT together with NOVA FCSH and ISCTE and in conjunction with CRIA, INET-md and IELT – three research centers with consolidated research in the areas of anthropology, ethnomusicology and traditional literatures. She has been focusing on the theme of migration, more specifically Portuguese emigration from mainland Portugal and the Azores, while always seeking to combine anthropology and the study of culture with her interests in the visual and artistic side.