Organised by the Archives of Macao (AM), under the auspices of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), an exhibition entitled “Pirates in the Waters of Macao (1854-1935)” will be held from next Wednesday to 31 January, “presenting the phenomenon of piracy in the surrounding waters of Macao and the multiple meanings it had for Macao,” the bureau said in a statement on Monday.
“The word ‘pirate’ [‘hoidouh’ in Cantonese] conjures up the stereotype of adventures, romances, cruelty and barbarities, which is a set of social representations cultivated fundamentally by literature and the film industry, the statement said.
“However, with a deeper study, one can see that ‘piracy’ is a particularly complex subject,” the statement said, adding that the exhibition aims, on the one hand, to encourage the public and researchers’ interest in the study and investigation of this subject and to give an account of the different dimensions of piracy as a social practice in a much wider political, economic, social and cultural system; and, on the other hand, to showcase a particularly rich collection of documentation preserved in Macao Archives.
According to the statement, the exhibition features a selection of over 100 documents, maps and photographs from Macao Archives’ collection that addresses the issue of piracy in the Pearl River Delta, “thereby revealing the diversity and thematic amplitude of the documentation, as well as developing knowledge about the multiple meanings of the phenomenon of piracy for Macao in the second half of the 19th century to the first decades of the 20th century.”
The exhibition will be open from 10 am to 6 pm daily except on Mondays and public holidays. The Macao Archives is located at 91-93, Avenida do Conselheiro Ferreira de Almeida. For more details visit www.archives.gov.mo or phone 2859 2919 during office hours.
(The Macau Post Daily/Macau News)
PHOTO © Archives of Macao (AM)
