Between Silence and Vision – António Dacosta and the Sense of Belonging in Painting

Assunção Melo

Was born on Terceira Island on November 25, 1974. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Advanced Training Center of the University of Évora, a postgraduate degree in Contemporary Art History from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at NOVA University Lisbon, and a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the same institution.

She is an integrated researcher at CHAM – Center for the Humanities (NOVA University Lisbon), and also collaborates with other research centers, including CHAIA at the University of Évora and CICS.NOVA.UAç. She is a full member of the Historical Institute of Terceira Island and, since March 2024, has served on its administrative board as treasurer.
Since 2017, she has been a guest assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the University of the Azores, teaching at the Angra do Heroísmo campus the courses História da Arte e do Património Construído I e II, within the undergraduate program in Nature and Heritage.

She is the author of seven books and more than thirty articles related to Art History and Azorean heritage, and has delivered numerous lectures and conference presentations in her field. Since 2001, she has dedicated significant scholarly attention to the Terceira-born artist António Dacosta, publishing in 2014 the book “António Dacosta a Clarividência da Saudade”. In 2021, she defended her doctoral dissertation, “António Dacosta e o Sentido de Pertença na Pintura: motivações, resistências e inovações”, which was unanimously approved with distinction and honors.
In 2024, she received the EMEL Prize (History of Routes, Paths, and Mobility) from the Portuguese Academy of History for her book “Altares da Memória – O Advento das Micro-Histórias na Periferia das Periferias”.

Diniz Borges

Was born in Praia da Vitória, on Terceira Island, Azores, and emigrated to the United States at the age of ten. He teaches language, culture, and literature, and conducts research at California State University, Fresno, where he founded and directs the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI). At Fresno State, he coordinates a constellation of initiatives — oral-history projects, transatlantic colloquia, communities of writers, exchange programs with the University of the Azores, and the editorial work of Bruma Publications. These projects, dispersed like islands on a chart, share a simple conviction: culture is a living tide, and the diaspora one of its enduring horizons.

He has published eight books on the social and cultural life of the United States and the Azorean diaspora in North America, most recently Raízes e Horizontes (Roots and Horizons) in Portuguese and The Infinite Blue (Stories, Reflections, and Essays from the Azorean Diaspora) in English. His work in translation includes volumes of poetry, fiction, history, and essays, as well as three coordinated anthologies that bring together diverse contemporary voices. His literary activity also extends to creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and cultural analysis. This is the 25th book he has published in translation.

He is a contributing writer for newspapers in the Azores and the Diaspora. These columns offer ongoing reflections on literature, culture, current events, language, identity, and diasporic experiences.

He also directs two digital platforms: “Filamentos”, dedicated to arts and letters in the Azores and Azorean diaspora, and “Novidades”, which focuses on cultural and social currents linking the islands and their global communities. Across these roles, his work centers on dialogue, cultural memory, and the many ways in which the Azores and the Azorean diaspora continue to speak to one another across distance and time.

ISBN: 9789897356711

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