Isle of Pleasures

Isle of Pleasures reflects on migration and the ways in which global flows of people and capital reshape societies and territories. The project focuses on the specific case of Portuguese migrants in Angola.

Angola’s rapid economic growth has made Luanda a key destination for international migration, with a significant proportion of newcomers arriving from the former colonial power, Portugal. Many of these migrants live in high-end condominiums, physically and socially detached from the city that surrounds their homes and workplaces. The project turns its attention to the Ilha de Luanda, a space traditionally shared by residents across social classes and backgrounds, and long associated with leisure, encounter, and escape from everyday pressures.

As Luanda undergoes accelerated urban regeneration, however, patterns of inequality and segregation have intensified. The proliferation of gated developments and security infrastructures increasingly threatens the island’s role as a shared public realm. Once a space of collective enjoyment, Luanda’s leisure landscapes risk becoming exclusive enclaves – gilded cages serving expatriate and local elites.

Isle of Pleasures situates this condition within a broader global phenomenon visible in many so-called “world-class” cities, where zones of luxury and consumption coexist with, yet remain profoundly disconnected from, the social, economic, and political realities of the wider urban population.