Cape Verde at the Whaling Museum

Southeastern Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island is the most Lusophone region in the United States. Our longstanding connections to Cape Verde, the Azores, and other Portuguese-speaking lands have their origins in whaling industry. For this reason, the New Bedford Whaling Museum (of which my family has been a supporting member for a number of years) has substantial permanent and temporary exhibits about these regions and strong connections to local Cape Verdean and Azorian communities.

Permanent exhibits about whaling in these two Atlantic archipelagos occupy more than half of the upper level of the Lagoda room -- whose main level features the world's largest model ship.

Cape Verde flag of 1975 - 1992
From my Morabeza exhibit album on Flickr

This post, however, is about two important temporary exhibits. As of this writing, I have spent some time with Morabeza: Cape Verdean Community in the South Coast (running May 24, 2025 through February 26, 2026). Some of my own impressions of this exhibit are in the captions of a few photos I have posted from my first visit. I will be returning to learn more, particularly about this local community's contributions to music at the national and global level. 

As of this writing, I am still looking forward to another exhibit, opening at the end of this week. Claridade: Cape Verdean Identity in Contemporary Art will run from the evening of May 13 through December 7, 2025. I will have much more to share about it after I attend the opening reception. 

Both of these exhibitions honor the 50th anniversary of Cape Verde's independence from Portugal.

Lagniappe

For much more on regional connections with Cape Verde, please visit the Cape Cod Cape Verdean Museum and Cultural Center in Falmouth. It includes a kiosk exhibit developed by one of my former students; her work is also available online as Tale of Two Capes. I learned very much from the minor role I played in that project -- particularly from CCCV founder Barbara Burgo.