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A história de arte urbana, nos bairros periféricos de Maputo, nasce como uma reacção controversa às constantes disputas pelos espaços convencio nais de exibição e valorização da produção artística nacional, neste caso as galerias e os espaços culturais estrangeiros que se encontram con centrados no circuito do bairro central. Estes, por tradição moderna, pra ticam a discriminação que consequentemente desvaloriza a arte de rua classificando-a como um acto de vandalismo. O termo “vandalismo” ficou em uso depois da Revolução Francesa, no final do século XVIII, quando se começou a associar o substantivo “vândalos” à destruição motivada pelas refregas sociais, como sugere o livro de Stephen Kershaw, “Os Ini migos de Roma: A Bárbara Rebelião contra o Império Romano” (2020).
Maputo, como uma pequena urbe de raízes coloniais, logicamente que se ergueu alicerçada em leis de controle, segregação e proibição de uso do espaço público. Por outro lado, ao arrepio dessas normas o facto da única escola artística vocacionada para o ensino das artes visuais (desde 1983 até 2010, quando foi transferida para a periferia da cidade), a Escola Nacional de Artes Visuais se localizar no centro da baixa da cidade de Maputo, acabou por contribuir, de forma indubitável, para a massifi cação de um tipo de cultura que se confinava a espaços fechados, tanto em institucionais (museus e galerias) como nos atelieres dos artistas.
Os primórdios dos anos 2000 marcam o rejuvenescimento de vários interesses no contexto da arte urbana, após a decadência dos murais revolucionários que representaram com vivacidade o cenário pós- inde pendência nacional. É nesse período que surgem múltiplas interven ções multidisciplinares como as de David Bonzo, o desenho gráfico, o vídeo, a poesia e ritmos do hip-hop; que se desenvolve a música ligeira em geral, e emerge a cultura rastafári que também foi muito expres siva na dinamização das acções artísticas, no espaço urbano.
As obras de arte pública comissionadas em espaços nobres da cidade, da assinatura de artistas consagrados como Malangatana, Naguib ou Titos
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Mabota, entre outros, criaram um impacto positivo e francamente estimula ram a imaginação no seio dos estudantes das artes visuais, os quais, na sua maioria, enfrentavam manifestas dificuldades de sobrevivência económica. Por outro lado, os condicionalismos sociais que sofriam terão impulsionado entre eles o desejo de um espírito de recompensa com garantias imediatas, hipótese que se gorou, e, sentindo-se discriminados, cresceu assim o des carte ou afastamento mais uma vez do espírito voluntário ou do artivismo que norteia a prática da arte pública. Por conseguinte, virá daí que as poucas intervenções públicas existentes na cidade sejam fruto de ocupações vali dadas/comissionadas pelos grupos da elite económica e social da cidade.
A prática de arte pública no contexto urbano de Maputo foi sempre de carácter comissionada por instituições governamentais; mais tarde, par ticularmente, a partir dos anos 2000 ampliou-se o palco para a intervenção dos artistas, com as comissões de arte publicitária, de painéis, ou de murais gigantes. Houve assim lugar para os primeiros contactos da comunidade com murais em espaços públicos por via de comissões, e enquadrados ora por contextos temáticos que visavam a educação, ora por campanhas políticas ou publicitárias, para reclame a produtos de consumo diário. Estes são os murais que mais se multiplicaram depois daqueles da revolução, quando mais empresas privadas apareceram e as demandas de murais ganharam mercado, ainda que com objectivos unicamente comerciais, não contri buindo para um ponto de vista de mudança de comportamento, de sã pro vocação às mentalidades instaladas ou para a representatividade cultural.
A arte urbana em Maputo ganha um novo contorno quando artistas independentes, contrariando as suas grandes dificuldades económicas e o difícil acesso às montras das galerias que poderiam reverter em ganhos económicos o fruto do seu trabalho, galvanizados pela sua paixão pelas artes, começam a pintar nas paredes dos seus próprios bairros. Eu sou um desses artistas que em 2012 começa pintando dentro do Bairro Uni dade 7, onde nasci e cresci, procurando expressar a sensibilidade da comu nidade que me rodeava e a influência da música tradicional que me rodeava (depois da independência, em particular por volta de 1980/90, vindos de Gaza e Inhambane, o grupo de dança de Ngalanga1 -dança tra dicional do sul de Moçambique - com bailarinos, e tocadores de timbilas
1 Ngalanga é uma dança tradicional muito comum no sul Mocambicana acompanhada por uma orques tra de batuques e timbileiros, praticada pelas tribos bantu, como forma de preparação militar, celebração vitoriosa, esta dança revelava um caracter acentuadamente social, constituindo um factor de relevo, para a manutenção da unidade tribal e para afirmação da lealdade comum dos seus membros ao respectivo chefe.
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instalarou-se neste Bairro, o mesmo grupo que viria a inspirar a criação de grupos de igual género musical nos bairros de Hulene e Polana Caniço).
Na contemporaneidade, a arte urbana, sobretudo no domínio dos murais, tem obtido um crescente reconhecimento social e visibilidade através do tra balho inegável de artistas como Shot-B, Mavec, Villa Terry, Mateus Sithole, Kassiano, Djinafita, e de outros que apareceram na nova vaga, após 2016; sendo hoje claro que a arte de rua independente se foi tornando mais digna de realce à medida que mais murais despontavam nos bairros de Maxa quene, Polana Caniço e Magoanine, e ficava patente a sua riqueza expressiva e invenção, aproximando assim mais as pessoas comuns e os artistas no seio das comunidades, que sentiam coloridos e embelezados os espaços urbanos - mesmo que sem garantia de permanência das obras, uma vez que tantas vezes as paredes são derrubadas, são repintadas para novas paisagens, sendo as assinaturas removidas, para além da erosão e do desgaste ligados aos pró prios elementos da natureza, o sol, a chuva, o vento, que amolecem a pigmen tação das tintas e consequentemente vão destruindo gradualmente os murais.
É neste estado das coisas que se torna fundamental o papel da foto (afinal, uma pioneira arte urbana, que a partir do início do século XIX se torna o grande arquivo de toda a vida moderna) e que, entre nós, se dá o cruzamento da arte urbana com a fotografia, através da lente do Ilde fonso Colaço, artista que também explora muito o espírito de criatividade independente no contexto de arte urbana, dignificando com o seu tra balho o espaço onde vive, registando, criando memória e longevidade à existência não só de murais mas também de muitos mais elemen tos que representam a presença humana na paisagem periférica.
Igualmente, a performance tem ganhado aí novos palcos, quando estu dantes de teatro e cinema se juntam com o mesmo empenho expres sivo e a necessidade de se fazerem reconhecer dentro do espaço onde crescem e estabelecem as rotinas do seu quotidiano.
Pequeno aparte para lembrar que o individualismo é também uma rea lidade emergente no espaço cultural Moçambicano, à semelhança do que se passa no mundo, o que recentemente se tem reflectido na crescente e interessante participação de artistas femininas, que aos poucos também tentam romper a clausura da criação ensimesmada para outras experiências a céu aberto, mais sociais, onde a interacção com os espectadores é mais espontânea; os quais são na sua maioria residentes e outros trânsfugas.
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Em Maputo, a liberdade de querer intervir na paisagem urbana, de a trans formar, é muito vincada e não é inferior à demanda de querer ver o seu traba lho artístico representado por galerias. Neste sentido, os investimentos pró prios são a primeira manifestação de quem sonha, e hoje com o fortalecimento das redes sociais, multiplicam-se os encontros e as interacções entre criativos formados em escolas técnicas e universidades com os muitos autodidatas que são atentos à necessidade de profissionalizar as suas habilidades e poten cializar-se no contexto de Artes Visuais, garantindo assim a continuação das sua actividade no meio cada vez mais exigente das manifestações culturais.
A presença recente e marcante de arte urbana nos bairros periféri cos de Maputo representa deste modo a materialização dessa liberdade de expressão e a possibilidade de transformação de espaços descarta dos em galerias abertas, com a agregação de valor eminentemente his tórico que advém de uma mais imediata e uma maior sintonia com os diferentes temas que envolvem directamente os residentes em tempo e espaço real; assim como a relação entre o artista e o público não con vencional é mais profunda e extractiva, devido à curiosidade pública de quem assiste à execução da obra “ao vivo”: um dos pontos que acho mais importantes quando se está a fazer arte urbana e que, a meu ver, enriquece os propósitos mais diversos para a criação da obra, sejam os seus objectivos os de simples divertimento, querendo apenas contar histórias, ou os de educar, de divertir ou de influenciar mudanças de com portamento em comunidades sem muito privilégio económico.
Esta publicação que, de entre vários colaboradores, conta com a con tribuição dos créditos fotográficos do Ildefonso Colaço e textos de Titos Pelembe (que também é artista plástico) pretende afirmar-se como salva guarda, registo e testemunho duma fase histórica da arte urbana contem porânea em Maputo, que por uma vez, estabelece modelos e desafios para o uso de espaço urbano, e incita à requalificação visual e cultural da comu nidade urbana, a partir da periferia para os bairros nobres. Que este raro vice-versa se torne trampolim para um maior diálogo é o nosso desejo.
Para além disso, a diversidade criativa, a qualidade de outras abor dagens e técnicas, o mapeamento de arte urbana em murais dentro e fora da cidade, justificam a importância deste material de con sulta para estudantes e interessados sobre arte em espaços públicos, com as suas diferenças em aplicação, concepção e prática. Os artis tas que estão nesta e outras disciplinas que difundem várias expressões de arte urbana, seja voluntária como inconscientemente, agradecem.
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Passado e PreseNte
As manifestações artísticas praticadas e disponíveis no espaço público remotam aos primórdios das antigas civilizações humanas; as pinturas rupestres constituem umas das evi dências. Geralmente o trabalho artístico, nas suas variadas expressões, acompanha o progresso tecnologógico e sócio -político do homem. Razão pela qual, na contemporanei dade, vários estudos se debruçam em torno do advento e dos conceitos de ‘arte urbana’ ou ‘arte pública’. E, particular mente em Moçambique, a prática de arte urbana ou da arte no espaço público tem igualmente as suas origens nas tradi ções mais antigas. Nesta perspectiva, interessa-nos situar a arte urbana a partir de dois contextos bipolares, especificamente no periódo colonial e no pós revolução, desde 1975 até agora.
Alguns trabalhos artísticos produzidos na era colonial, de natu reza muralista ou na estatuária, pretendiam ser marcas distintivas do poder colonial português e foram localizados em determinados espaços edificados de enorme importância social. Assim, algumas dessas criações plásticas enriquecem actualmente a paisagem arquitectónica e urbanística da cidade. Dentre várias obras, des tacam-se: o mural de cerâmica policromada de autoria do artista plástico português Querubim Lapa (1925-2016), instalado na fachada do antigo edifício do Banco de Moçambique (descen dente da Sede do Banco Nacional Ultramarino); o Monumento em Homenagem aos Combatentes Europeus e Africanos da 1ª Grande Guerra Mundial (1931), de autoria do escultor Rui Roque Gameiro (1906-1936), exposto na actual Praça dos Trabalha dores; entre outros trabalhos, refiram-se ainda: dois grandes painéis de esculturas em bronze, da autoria do escultor Antó nio Duartes, e um médio, em mármore, não identificado, execu tados em técnica de alto e baixo relevo, embutidos na fachada do edifício da Rádio Moçambique. Para além, das várias interven ções artísticas de natureza arquitectónica da autoria do célebre arquitecto Pancho Guedes e disponíveis nas fachadas e empenas de alguns dos seus emblemáticos edificios situados ao longo da cidade, ou o painel de António Quadros na filial do Mille nium BIM, na esquina da 24 de Julho com a Salvador Allende.
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E ao longo dos alvoroçados momentos de revolução pós independência (1975), que culminou com a destituição dos símbolos de poder e da soberania colonial, outros trabalhos sobretudo da estatuária monumental foram destruidos, e alguns retirados dos locais públicos onde estavam implantados. Tal como aconteceu, por exemplo, com a remoção da estátua de Mouzinho de Albuquerque na praça que ostentava o mesmo nome, actual praça da independência, onde se ergue actualmente a imponente estátua do primeiro presidente de Moçambique –independente, Samora Moisés Machel (n.1933-1986).
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o
PaPel
dos Murais No Processo de reVolução cultural
O segundo momento, pós-colonial, vinculado pela celebra ção da independência nacional em 1975, deu-se naturalmente nos anos subsequentes e foi marcado pela ressurgência de acti vidades artísticas de carácter popular, as quais podem ser lidas a partir das lentes conceptuais da arte urbana. Essas manifes tações enquadravam-se nas acções associadas à revolução nacional, tendo em conta a potencialização da ofensiva cultural das classes trabalhadoras que, entre várias questões, instigava a consciência crítica sobre os horrores do colonialismo e por conseguinte cultivava a consolidação dos valores nacionalistas.
Diversas festividades públicas tiveram então lugar ao longo do país; sublinhem-se os seguintes acontecimentos: Exposi ção de Arte Popular (1975), Reunião Nacional da Cultura (1977) e o I° Festival Nacional de Dança Popular (1978), que juntou, “pela primeira vez, danças de todo o país” (Costa, 2013:261). Daí que muitas obras hajam sido executadas preferencialmente em locais públicos, às vezes por iniciativa dos próprios artis tas, outras por meio de comissões institucionais. O grandioso mural da Praça dos Heróis Moçambicanos, pintado em 1979, com assinatura do artista João Craveirinha, sobrinho do reno mado poeta José Craveirinha resultou desta dinâmica. Esta mag nífica obra, para além de retratar os distintos períodos da história recente do país, contribuiu inclusive no processo de dissemina ção do pensamento revolucionário através das artes plásticas.
Várias outras expressões artísticas, como a Escultura, o Dese nho, a Pintura, a Instalação, a Assemblagem e o baixo-relevo, foram palco e continuam sendo exploradas como manifestações da arte ao serviço da revolução; projectando-se a pintura como uma das técnicas artísticas de eleição. Naturalmente que esta conheceu mutações, ao longo do tempo, pelos diferentes protago nistas inter-geracionais que compõem o tecido artístico nacional. A preferência pela pintura em detrimento das restantes disciplinas talvez se deva à longa tradição que a antecede e ao facto de ser uma técnica ligada a materiais mais baratos e de execução simples sobre qualquer género de superfície. Por outro lado, talvez seja motivada pela facilidade de manuseamento, aquisição e adapta ção dos materiais, em comparação com as demais disciplinas.
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Contudo, os anos 80 e 90 terão sido significativamente mar cados pela presença de manifestações artísticas no espaço urbano, no caso particular dos murais carregadas de forte sim bolismo nacionalista, como vestígios dos sonhos de (re)construir o “homem novo” e a nação moçambicana, conforme se docu menta no livro “Imagens de Uma Revolução” (1984), da autoria do jurista e activista dos direitos humanos sul-africano Albie Sachs.
A cultura foi um dos meios utilizados para fomentar a coesão social; para o efeito, “a direcção Nacional de Cul tura foi o instrumento de execução das políticas então defini das”. A mesma visou “valorizar a cultura moçambicana, criar uma cultura revolucionária e popular que traduzisse as vivên cias do Povo no processo de transformação da sociedade –combatendo a cultura da burguesia…” (Costa, 2013-248).
Ao longo deste período, recrudesceram as acções no âmbito da pintura de murais, da criação de cartazes, de banda dese nhada, de caricaturas e paredes informativas, designadas como jornais-do-povo. Diferentes activistas sociais, artis tas profissionais, principiantes e populares contribuiram na materialização destas acções. Todo este conjunto de inter venientes desempenharam e continuam a jogar um papel de extrema relevância no âmbito da revolução, por conse guinte na formação da nova sociedade moçambicana.
Artistas como Malagantana, Mankew, Noel Langa, e Shikhane intervieram na época de diferentes formas, produzindo murais comissionados e não só ao longo do país, com des taque para os trabalhos realizados nas cidades de Maputo, Beira e Tete. Por exemplo, Malangatana pintou entre 1977 e 1979 o mural intitulado “O Homem e a Natureza”, loca lizado no exterior do Museu de História Natural.
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Naguib, “Ode a Samora Machel”, 2006-2007
Actualmente, a intervenção do multifacetado Naguib, com a sua consequente prática artística urbana, merece uma aten ção especial, devido à sua inovação na aplicação de suportes e técnicas que localmente são novas, ou patentemente pouco exploradas tais como o mosaico e a combinação de vários materiais. Ligado à geração de 60, Naguib tem vindo a dinami zar a arte urbana desde 2006, através da criação de extensos murais com recurso a mosaico. Os seus trabalhos emblemáticos foram produzidos em diversos locais de destaque nas cidade de Maputo e na Vila de Songo, província de Tete, perto das instalações Centrais da Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa.
Contudo, para além dos acontecimentos e intervenien tes nomeados, surgiram na contemporaneidade novos protagonistas, continuadores da arte urbana, primordial mente por meio do grafite, street art e muralismo. Estes, pelo seu turno, dedicam-se particularmente à revalo rização de áreas marginalizadas, arruinadas, situadas sobretudo na periferia, para além do uso de espaços localizados no centro urbano da cidade de Maputo.
A par destes acontecimentos, compreenda-se que as artes tendem a acompanhar o desenvolvimento social das nações ou simplesmente das comunidades. No caso particular de Moçambique, os anos 90 foram caracterizadas por inten sas actividades artísticas, e citemos: a realização do primeiro workshop internacional de artes plásticas, decorrido em 1991 no Núcleo de Arte sobre organização da artista Fátima Ferna des (Costa, 2013:347), entre outros eventos que posteriormente se seguiram, especificamente: Ujamaa I, II e IV. Por um lado, esta abertura derivou das várias transformações sócio-polí ticas e económicas que marcaram a conjuntura local, regio nal e global. Importa referir que, entretanto, a nível político se assistiu à implementação da nova Constituição da República (1990), fruto das negociações que lograram acabar com a guerra civil entre os partidos: Renamo e Frelimo, em reac ção a este movimento ter assumido o papel de partido único, num regime monopartidário. A guerra fustigou o desenvol vimento do país desde o seu início em 1977, até ao aparente momento de apaziguamento que culminou com a assinatura
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dos primeiros Acordos Gerais de Paz (Roma-1992); com o fim das hostilidades militares entre os irmãos moçambicanos introduziu-se o multipartidarismo, que pôde manifestar-se na realização das primeiras eleições gerais de 1994. Simulta neamente, a nível regional e global aponte-se, dentre vários acontecimentos, o fim do regime de apharteid na África do Sul.
Corolariamente, nessa altura abriu-se espaço para uma maior circulação dos artistas e houve abertura para a participação de artistas moçambicanos em eventos internacionais tais como: residências, bienais, workshops e exposições. Daí que vários jovens artistas moçambica nos maioritariamente em formação na época, ou recém -formados pela Escola Nacional de Artes Visuais, tiveram
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2006-2007
Naguib. “Ode a Samora Machel”,
a oportunidade e beneficiaram de workshops e do desfrute de outro tipo de exposições, local e internacionalmente.
Paralelamente, alguns fazedores culturais anónimos, nas cidos nos anos 70 e 80, sucessores da cultura revolucionária do movimento Hip hop moçambicano são apontados como pioneiros da pintura de rua em técnica de grafite e pichagens. Os artistas que estão ainda activos na cena de arte urbana, nomeadamente: Shot B (Bruno Mateus), Afroivan (António Ivan Muhambe) e Bruno Chichava, entre outros de não menor relevo, são alguns actores formados pela Escola Nacional de Artes. Coincidentemente, os artistas urbanos mencionados foram infuenciados, nas suas actuações e criações, de forma
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significativa pela cultura do Hip hop nacional e internacional e alguns são mesmo figuras do próprio movimento do Hip hop.
Outrossim, junte-se a este grupo de artistas multidisci plinares e grafiteiros mencionados, outros criativos emer gentes notáveis: Kassiano, Djinafita, Sebastião Coana, Mateus Sithole, Barimu, Doglas, Djive Make Studio, Amino e Chaná de Sá que, recentemente, têm desenvolvidos traba lhos consideravéis no contexto de arte urbana das cidades de Maputo e Inhambane. O trabalho destes criativos desen volve-se num espectro amplo, que compreende interven ções de carácter efémero, performativo e permanentes.
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uM olhar sobre as NarratiVas teMáticas PreseNtes Na arte urbaNa
Urge por isso a necessidade de retratar a realidade actual e his tórica do país e do mundo a partir da visão singular dos artistas urbanos, bem como da construção de uma identidade visual autó noma e distante das agendas partidárias politicamente dominan tes; o desiderato da divulgação do seu trabalho constitui um dos principais desafios que este grupo de profissionais enfrenta.
Daí que parte considerável das obras que integram a arte urbana da cidade procure reflectir sobre a realidade actual, como meio de enaltecer os diversos aspectos culturais, sócio -políticos e as figuras nacionais intrinsecamente ligadas ao pro cesso de revolução nacionalista e de desenvolvimento do país.
Os murais dos artistas: Shot B, Francisco Vilankulos, Kassiano, Chaná de Sá e Mateus Sithole, entre outros, recorrentemente revisitam as memórias colectivas do passado e do presente.
Enquanto os trabalhos de Afroivan, Djinafita, Sebas tião Coana, Samuel Djive, geralmente dentro da visão ante rior, propõem uma aventura criativa em torno do imaginário urbano, onde a fantasia, o mito e o retrato social contempo râneo enraizado na identidade africana é evocado constante mente; esta narrativa, re-centrada pelo afrocentrismo, encon tra também espaço nos murais colaborativos produzidos pelos artistas e colectivos internacionais (Jonathan Darby , Andy Leuenberger, Zallicus Alice Zaniboni e Boa Mistura).
Os trabalhos dos consagrados e reconhecidos artistas moçam bicanos (Naguib e Titos Mabota), também não são excepção e cruzam diferentes abordagens. Por exemplo, o extenso mural de mosaico de autoria de Naguib “Ode a Samora Machel” (2007), aborda igualmente as questões temáticas evocadas, bem como objetiva contribuir significativamente no melhoramento da qua lidade visual do espaço urbano em que se insere. E a escultura de Mabota, comissionada pela empresa pública de telefonia móvel, actual TMCEL, por seu turno, enaltece a massificação e o desenvolvimento da rede de telefonia móvel moçambi cana junto das populações, situadas no interior do país. Shot B. “Let my people go”, 2022.
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a MultidisciPliNaridade e iNforMalidade da arte urbaNa
Quer o conceito de espaço urbano quer o do espaço público aludem a uma mutualidade de interesses e de uso comum, razão pela qual a arte urbana ou pública também con corre para um bem comum, dado funcionar como canal para uma livre fruição artística; para a regeneração de espaços maltratados e melhoramento da qualidade visual do espaço comum; para a educação cultural e muito mais.
Em anuência com a presente reflexão anterior, pode mos situar melhor, nesta perspectiva, o enquadramento das obras efémeras expostas no espaço público perten centes ao artista Kassiano, as quais de certo modo incor poram a dimensão performativa, que se denota no próprio facto do mesmo percorrer distintos pontos da cidade no final do dia e início da noite para pessoalmente fixar os seus tra balhos em locais previamente escolhidos ou aleatórios.
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Estes trabalhos integram retratos de várias figuras famosas ou anónimas, colocados sobre papel ou papelão, e são expostos na rua, em vários suportes urbanos tais como: postes de ilumina ção pública, muros de vedação, fachadas de edificios e também nos troncos das árvores. Esta estratégia expositiva é igualmente explorada pelo Afroivan com o aproveitamento do mobiliário urbano do centro da cidade, através das acções de “pincha mento” espontâneo de vários conteúdos sobre estes materiais.
A partir dos conceitos partilhados pelo investigador e professor José Guilherme Abreu (2015), compreende-se que a conceptua lização da arte pública é multidisciplinar, e muito mais abragente do que as simples expressões recorrentes como o muralismo, e que nela se exploram técnicas de grafite, pintura, mosaico, assembleagem, instalações, esculturas, etc. Por exemplo, incor poram-se também, no contexto de arte urbana, os animado res ocasionais de rua que se expressam comumente através da música, dança, teatro e artes performativas no geral. Assim sendo, é comum nas ruas, avenidas, mercados e espaços de lazer da cidade de Maputo presenciar alguns momentos de anima ção de rua protagonizados por diferentes grupos; nomeemos, dentre os mais notavéis, W Tofo Tofo, Robotizzy Shonguile Arte, incluíndo os “madalas” (homens adultos), trovadores anónimos que actuam geralmente no mer cado do povo, de modo ambulante.
Conclui-se também que a arte pública pode assumir qualquer meio, material ou forma de apre sentação, desde que esteja virada para o consumo das massas populares, no cenáculo urbano. Por isso, geralmente os artistas que actuam neste campo acabam desempenhando funções e atitudes de activismo, usando a arte como forma de protesto e contraponto social das comunidades, como por exemplo as acções artísti cas desenvolvidas pelo projecto “Maputo street art, Bring Back Maputo”, entre outras iniciativas.
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Mateus Sithole. “O sonho Muda o Mundo”, 2020
coNteMPorâNeos
O início do presente século (XXI) conheceu novas realidades no domínio da arte produzida no espaço urbano, face aos inúmeros desafios da nova ordem social, política e económica do país, mas também fruto de novas práticas impulsionadas quer pelo contexto local, bem como regional e internacional, visto que com o fim da guerra civil em 1992 o país abriu-se mais para o resto do mundo. As artes, no geral, não ficaram alheias às novas mudanças, tendo surgido novos protagonistas aspi rantes a artistas, nascidos ao longo dos anos 80, alguns dos quais obtiveram formação artística a partir de 2000 nos distintos cursos e níveis de especialização ministrados pela Escola Nacional de Artes Visuais - ENAV.
Como resultado da coesão e intersecção social dos demais acon tecimentos, o discurso artístico começou a descolar dos espa ços institucionalizados das galerias e museus. Algumas inicia tivas, entre workshops e exposições organizadas pela ENAV em parceria com artistas e organizações internacionais, tive ram lugar especificamente nas ruas de Maputo. “Ocupações Temporárias” foi um dos projectos do início da segunda década do presente século, entre 2011- 2013, sob a produ ção e coordenação da curadora portuguesa Elisa Santos. Shot B e o rapper Azagaias são os dois artistas urbanos moçambicanos que integraram o mesmo projecto.
Localmente, inúmeras obras de carácter público, sobretudo corporativas, vêm sendo desenvolvi das no espaço urbano. Dentre as muitas interven ções de carácter institucional, importa desta car as mais recentes, especificamente a pintura colectiva do mural da EDM (2017); a fachada do edifício do Hospital Central de Maputo, ambas da autoria de professores e alunos da Escola Nacional de Artes Visuais e também a requalificação da “Praça dos Combatentes”, bem como o “Monumento em Homena gem à Organização da Mulher Moçambi cana – OMM , do artista Naguib e a está tua de Filipe Samuel Magaia, só para citar algumas.
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NoVos desdobraMeNtos
Paralelamente, também várias outras intervenções, propostas pelos próprios artistas, têm tido lugar em diferentes lugares descentralizados da cidade, particularmente em espaços públicos marginalizados, tanto no centro, como nos bairros periféricos, obras que mais adiante apresentaremos. Em parte, este movi mento, cada vez mais importante, é massificado através do projecto Maputo street art, que integra um número significativo de jovens interessados pela arte urbana nomeadamente: Afroivan, Kassiano, Djinafita, Manaven tane, Matheus Sithole, Ildafonso Colasso, Phayra Baloi, Amarildo Rungo e outros mais. Destacamos estes, sem tender de forma alguma ignorar o trabalho de outros artis tas que os precederam nesta iniciativa, mas que actuaram individualmente.
Mas importa relembrar que, muito antes da existência jecto Maputo street art, como tem sido referenciado, nio da arte urbana a cidade de Maputo conheceu uma lenta, instável, marginal mas progressiva da arte fora oficiais das exposições. Novas obras foram executadas planificada, espontânea e híbrida em locais marginalizados ou desactivados da cidade. Foram introduzidas, de novas técnicas e também novos materiais de pintura como da tinta spray em lata com que são pintados os Jovens artistas como Shot B, Mavec, dentre outros, nomes que se destacam a partir dos anos 2000. Shot B, da sua carreira enquanto grafiteiro e rapper nos tem intervindo recorrentemente no espaço urbano formas, tanto a partir de trabalhos concessionados mente, como por exemplo o extenso mural pintado da OUA, entre 2010 e 2012 (infelizmente parte significativa dste trabalho já não existe foi apagado, devido a censura ou repressão social entre outros executados em diferentes pontos entre ria, de onde se destaca o recente mural “Let My People Go” tando no interior do bairro da Mafalala. Shot B também colaborou na produção do emblemático mural situado na parede exterior junto ao Porto de Maputo. Este trabalho resulta de o artista e o Fraime 1. O mural em alusão visa imortalizar figuras que contribuíram para o desenvolvimento das bicanas, nomeadamente: Alberto Chissano, Noémia nha, Malangatana, e Fany Mpfumo.
É de capital importância evidenciar o progresso e a massifica ção gradual de outras técnicas, tais como o alto, o baixo-relevo e o mosaico no panorama do desenvolvimento da arte pública em Moçambique. Esta última técnica ganhou novos contornos no ambiente artístico da capital do país, inspirada nos murais do multifacetado artista Naguib, por volta dos anos 2006. Neste âmbito, dentre as muitas obras, destaca-se a produção do reco nhecido mural “Ode a Samora Machel” (2007), com cerca de 700 metros, executado nas famosas barreiras do museu, no prolonga mento da avenida Marginal em Maputo. Actualmente, a técnica do mosaico tem sido seguida por outros artistas emergentes, nomeadamente por Samuel Arão Djive autor do mural produzido na fachada da embaixada da Tailândia, no prolongamento da ave nida Julius Nyerere e por Marcelino Manhuma, mentor do mural produzido intalações da Federação Nacional de Futebol.
Afroivan + Andy Leuenberger. “Mercadorias Ocultas”, 2022
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asceNsão dos Murais coMerciais (2000 – 2010)
Certamente o novo ambiente socioeconómico e cultural posterior à rea lização das primeiras eleições multipartidárias (1994), e consequente adesão ao sistema financeiro internacional, ou seja, à chamada “econo mia de mercado”, tornou Moçambique apetecível para o investimento externo privado. A entrada do financiamento internacional (in)directamente pode ter ditado, de igual modo, as novas directrizes do discurso artís tico, fazendo com que a visão anteriormente dominante inerente ao papel das artes ao serviço da revolução desacelerasse progressivamente a favor do advento de novos tipos de murais comerciais que rapidamente inunda ram as ruas, avenidas e os principais espaços públicos atractivos da cidade. A corrida pela ocupação do espaço urbano colocou as grandes empresas multinacionais em competição e, por conseguinte, os poucos murais essen cialmente artísticos que se encontravam em zonas desprotegidas foram gradualmente desaparecendo do ambiente urbano a favor dos murais comerciais. Como prova disso os murais pintados pelo colectivo de artistas membros da Associação Cultura Achufre foram praticamente todos des truídos. Deste modo, a paisagem urbana foi sendo cada vez mais impreg nada por conteúdos comerciais, o que se mantém até aos dias de hoje.
O artista e professor de artes visuais, Tembo Sina nhal (2016), argumenta, em torno desta problemática:
Observa-se um crescente número de painéis e cartazes em paredes e muros, outdoors em Maputo e Matola, assim como pinturas murais que abordam temas comerciais, publicidades de bens e serviços. Estes painéis monopolizam o espaço público e os espaços são usados como campos de batalhas de marketing, promovendo o consumismo, uma das estratégias do capitalismo. (2016:7).
39
”
“
Em concordância com os argumentos do Sinanhal, a reali dade descrita está patente na área das duas cidades (Maputo e Matola), pese embora por um lado este fenómeno também ter conhecido uma redução significativa nos últimos anos, devido a factores diversos. A evolução das plataformas tecnológicas de comunicação e consequente digitalização de serviços pode ser apontada como uma das razões por detrás desta mudança; mas também a tomada de consciência por parte da sociedade e, sobretudo, de alguns artistas que passaram a encarar o espaço público como suporte expandido, democrático para melhor fruição e descentralização das actividades artística do centro da cidade para o espaço periférico. Este facto pode ser consi derado como um dos aspectos relevantes na contemporanei dade a ter em conta para justificar o reaparecimento massivo, pela primeira vez na história nacional, de murais meramente artísticos votados ao serviço da arte pela arte, onde os temas predominantemente retratados abordam questões criativas e problemáticas sociais que reflectem directamente as vozes dos artistas, sem nenhum condicionalismo de carácter político -partidário, como acontecia outrora com os murais e os restantes monumentos produzidas no contexto colonial e pós-colonial.
Há quem associe esta feliz reviravolta da massificação da arte urbana através do muralismo (grafitis, pichagens, mosaicos e pin turas) a uma continuidade da revolução cultural que em tempos foi vivenciada pelas gerações anteriores à indepência a partir do bairro de Mafalala, bem como no exterior, tendo como refe rência ideológica os Estados Unidos da América onde decorreu o notável 'Renascimento da Cultura Negra' em Harlem nos primór dios do século XX (Fohlen.1973:40). Actualmente, o (re)surgimento de vários movimentos e espaços culturais de interesse urbano, tais como “Eu Sou do Gueto”, “Maputo street art”, “Museu e Projecto Utopia Mafalala”, “Restaurante e Galeria Piriquita's”, “Hodi Maputo Swing e Polana Creative Space”, estes últimos sediados no bairro da Polana Caniço, entre outros, constituem uma prova de resiliên cia cultural face aos desafios sócio-culturais e económicos presen tes. É neste universo de acontecimentos que o actual cenário de florescimento da arte urbana na cidade capital tem as suas raízes.
40
o Percurso da arte urbaNa No ceNtro e Nas Periferias de MaPuto
Parte significativa das obras que constitui o presente mapeamento da arte urbana encontram-se dispersos essencialmente em três distritos munici pais dos sete que compõem a cidade, especificamente: (1) no distrito urbano de KaMpfumo que compreende às seguintes áreas: Baixa da cidade, Central; Polana Cimento, Alto Maé, Sommerschield “I”, Malhangalene e Coop. (2) dis trito urbano de Nlhamankulu, integra os bairros de Aeroporto, Chamaculo, Malanga, Mikadjuine, Munhuana, Unidade 7 e Xipamanine. (3) Por último, o distrito urbano de KaMaxaquene composto pelos bairros de Sommerschield “II”, Mafalala, Polana Caniço, Maxaquene e Urbanização.
Outros Distritos
3-distrito urbano de kamaxaquene 2-Distrito urbano de Nlhamankulu 1-Distrito urbano de KaMpfumo
41
”
No contexto da cidade, Mavec aponta o caso do surgimento de vários núcleos sonantes (in)formais ligados ao Hip hop1 no seio do bairro central, Malhanga lene, Coop, Maxaquene e Polana Caniço, entre outros, num intervalo temporal que compreende os anos 80 a 2000.
O artista avança ainda que “os fazedores do Hip hop encontram na arte do grafiti um meio de comunicação visual nas ruas e avenidas”, e que através das mesmas foi possível expandir, democratizar, impor os seus ideais e con ceitos identitários. (Mavec, 2022). Os artistas de rua, como Shot B, Afroivan, Bruno Chichava e outros mais jovens ainda, como o caso recente do Djinafita, são resultado da história e práticas artísticas forjadas entre a música e as artes visuais, que atravessam distintas gerações e períodos. Na perspectiva do pen samento do Mavec (2020) o “Hip hop surge no contexto da periferia, enquanto identidade subalterna, razão pela qual a sua aceitação sempre foi problemática no seio das classes dominantes até então” (comunicação pessoal).
1 Tais como: TBB, Dabomber, Monarquia Negra, Rappers Unite, Tropas do Futuro.
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diMeNsão PerforMatiVa da arte urbaNa
Visto que a arte urbana não constitui nenhum estilo material ou estético, ela transcende as terminologias ou conceptualizações que caracterizam, por exemplo: os movimentos artísticos euro peus como o cubismo, fauvismo e muito mais. A informalidade que caracteriza a arte urbana contemporânea constitui-se como um dos principais princípios democráticos e liberdade artística. No entanto, a arte urbana pode ocorrer em diferentes âmbitos que abrangem as seguintes dimensões: estatuária celebrativa; arranjo urbanístico; entretenimento; panfleto/ grafiti; modo crítico e poético, de acordo com a curadora Gabriela Vaz Pinheiro (2018).
Porém, cruzando as diferentes modalidades da actuação da arte urbana em analogia com as obras dominantes no con texto da cidade de Maputo em revista, compreende-se que ela abarca os diversos âmbitos propostos pela curadora supracitada. À luz deste pensamento importa reforçar a existência da arte urbana na componente performativa, visto que este género é cada vez menos visível nas ruas, avenidas e espaços públicos de lazer. De modo geral, a arte performativa urbana integra-se no domínio do entretenimento, neste campo projectam-se na vida artística da cidade a existência de grupos e movimentos que se dedicam às actuações de rua, por meio da música, dança, cenas lúdicas e performativas, nomeadamente: W – Tofo, Robotizzy Shonguile Art entre outros grupos. Incluam-se também, nesta área, os trova dores informais ou ambulantes, animadores dos mercados munici pais da cidade, com destaque particular para o mercado do Povo.
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Kassiano. “Rostos de Maxaquene”, 2022
artistas iNterNaciNais Na diNaMização da arte urbaNa
Maputo enquanto cidade criativa e cosmopolítica tem acolhido diversos artistas urbanos e colectivos internacionais. Em 2016 o consagrado artista espanhol Fidel Añaños (Mister), orien tou um foro de arte urbana que contou a participação de 15 artistas plásticos moçambicanos. Este intercâmbio resultou na execução de um mural no Feira de Artesanato, Flores e Gas tronomia de Maputo - FEIMA. Jonathan Darby é um dos artis tas de renome de origem inglesa, que durante a sua visita ao país em 2017, deixou ficar a sua marca criativa na cidade, através do mural pintado na avenida da Malhangalene.
Dentre vários acontecimentos, importa destacar o contri buto e participação de artistas multidisciplinares baseados em Zurique-Suiça, nomeadamente Taina e AemKa,os quais em 2019 participaram juntamente com artistas moçam bicanos na pintura do mural colectivo integrado no pro jecto Viva Con Água Moçambique, localizado na FEIMA.
Em 2021, outros artistas associados ao colectivo de arte urbana – Boa Mistura, baseado em Espanha - Madrid intervie ram na cidade. Estes também ofereceram à cidade das acá cias um notável mural situado ao longo da majestosa avenida Eduardo Mondlane, junto ao edifício da Cooperação Espanhol.
Mais artistas multidisciplinares, activistas e voluntários internacionais têm demonstrado cada vez maior interesse em desenvolver trabalhos e intercâmbios artísticos, em prol do desenvolvimento da arte urbana em Moçambique, a partir da experiência da cidade de Maputo. Andy Leuenberger é um dos artistas e activistas alemães que ao longo deste ano (2022), pintou uma obra em parceria com o muralista moçambicano Afroivan, fundador do Maputo street art. A par disso, e presente mente, a ilustradora italiana Zallicus Alice Zaniboni, além de ter pintado alguns murais em colaboração com os artistas Afroivan e Kassiano, também tem prestado a sua assistência na realiza ção de outros murais no interior do bairro de Chamanculo.
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É inegável o interesse e reconhecimento crescentes da arte urbana, dada a sua importância na vida das comunidades, no que concerne à educação artística, bem como o seu poten cial no processo de activação espacial dos espaços marginaliza dos. Não obstante, nota-se a ausência participativa de artistas mulheres nesta área, embora como é evidente, este género de criação, no panorama nacional das artes visuais, ainda seja prática de um número bastante reduzido de artistas, quer de emergentes como de consagrados. Primeiro, é um exercí cio relativamente recente e que, nos moldes actuais, se centra mais no artivismo do que necessariamente numa prática essen cialmente comercial, como é inerente à venda de obras de arte moderna e contemporâneas materialmente transportáveis nas galerias e museus. Por outro lado, o seu carácter cívico-ape lativo e à priori menos comercial toma um aspecto desafiador para quem deseja desenvolver a carreira artística neste domí nio. Talvez por isso ainda não tenha atraído muitos praticantes.
A arte urbana requer outro tipo de financiamento muito mais estruturado, e, infelizmente, o contexto nacional actual ainda está muito longe de poder satisfazer as expectativas.
Embora iniciativas do género sejam sempre relevantes porque permitem criar novos públicos e atrair a sensibilidade dos mais diversos públicos que modulam o tecido social e os mecanis mos de recepção das artes, desde curadores, coleccionadores, patrocinadores e sociedade civil; sem descurarmos a possibili dade de poderem atrair mais investimentos para o sector e uma consequente valorização ulterior, tão necessária. Desta forma, poderá ser possível, num curto espaço de tempo, posicionar a cidade de Maputo no circuito internacional de arte urbana.
161 desPedida
Abreu, José Guilherme. (2015). "Arte Pública Como Meio de Interação Social: Da Participação Cívica ao Envolvimento Comunitário" in Almeida, Bernardo. Rosendo, Catarina. Margarida, Alves. (eds (2015), Arte pública: lugar, contexto, participação. Câmara Municipal de Santo Tirso: Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHA – FCSH/UNL), pp. 171-174.
Almeida, Bernardo. Rosendo, Catarina. Margarida, Alves. (eds.) (2015). Arte Pública: Lugar, Contexto, Participação, Câmara Municipal de Santo Tirso: Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Huma nas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHA – FCSH/UNL).
Campbell, Brígida. (2015). Arte Para Uma Cidade Sensível. São Paulo: Radi cal Livros.
Cossa, Emílio (2019). Ritmo, Alma e Poesia: A história e as Estórias do Hip hop em Moçambique. Maputo: Editora.
Costa, Alda (2013). Arte em Moçambique – Entre a construção da nação e o mundo sem fronteiras: 1932 – 2004. Lisboa: Verbo.
______ . (2019). Arte e Artistas em Moçambique Diferentes Gerações e Modernidades / Art and Artists in Mozambique: different generations and variants of modernity. Maputo: Marimbique.
Harvey, David. [2012] (2014). Cidades Rebeldes: Do Direito à Cidade à Revolução Urbana. (Trad. Jeferson Camargo). São Paulo: Martins Fontes –Selo Martins.
162 bibliografia
Instituto Nacional de Estatística. (2019). Recenseamento Geral da Popu lação e Habitação. (IV CENSO 2017). Disponível em: http://www.ine.gov.mz
Ngoenha, Severino Elias. (2016). “A (im)possibilidade do momento moçam bicano - Notas Estéticas”. Maputo: Alcance Editores.
Onwezor, Okwui e Oguibe, Olu. (Ed.). (1999). Reading the contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace. Kirkman House, London: Institute of International Visual Arts
Sachs, albie. (1984). Imagens de Uma Revolução. Minerva Central: Maputo
Sinanhal, Tembo João. (2016). Arte Pública em Moçambique – Maputo Intervenções nos espaços públicos a partir da prática artística do Mural. Disponível em: https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/84636 (data da última consulta:11/08/2022. 15:09).
Victor, Correia. (2013). Arte Pública-Seu Significado e Função. 1ªedição. Lisboa: Editora Fonte da Palavra.
Pinheiro, Gabriela Vaz (2018). Memória e Representação, Cidadania e Poder. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfDDfM454SA
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This book has been possible thanks to the collective effort of many people but, first, we would like to thank the artists who are mentio ned in these pages, in one way or another, for embellishing the walls of our city, Maputo. Each and every artist mentioned herein deser ves special acknowledgment. We would have liked for more women to have been included in this book and we, at the Spanish Cooperation, are working towards including more young women in this art form.
The Spanish Cooperation strives to build bridges between Mozambican artists and the international public, so their efforts may be recognized across the globe. This Project proposes to introduce both the Mozambican public and the international community beyond our borders to the current art scene, and simultaneously offer a historical perspective of Urban Art in Maputo.
Up until now, Maputo and its walls have been a well-kept secret from the world. The Spanish Cooperation would like to reveal this secret to the world by offering this humble guide, which will allow sightseers to get to know the city through its walls.
We would like to thank Ethale Publishing for participating in this edi tion. We would also like to thank all of the people who joined forces to make this project a reality and, above all, we would like to thank all the artists, both Mozambican and foreign, who have made it possible for public spaces to become more welcoming. We hope that the beauty these artists create will allow us to keep on improving, as people.
Cerezo Sobrino Ambassador of Spain in Mozambique
Maputo, November 2022 .
166 Preface
Alberto
The purpose of this book is to focus on urban art within the context of the city of Maputo. One of its objectives is to document the works and the respective journeys of the artists working in this area.
The mapping process resulting from this publication will allow us to understand the plu rality of recent interventions throughout the city, divided between the urbanised centre and the periphery.
Given the indispensable value of this form of art in the growth of the city’s cultural life and landscape, the intention is to contribute to the appreciation for and involvement in this art form. Throughout historical periods and in different contexts, urban art has long been one of the artistic vehicles of social communication. In contemporary times, it is increasingly presenting itself with recourse to new materials, new aesthetic forms, themes and dynamics of expression.
Although the focus of this book is on contemporary urban art, it does not altogether ignore the contribution of relevant works produced in the colonial period, some of which are still accessible for the public’s pleasure.
Urban art is currently (re)emerging with increased exuberance in suburban settings as a way to connect and unify the two totally contrasting areas of the cement city “Xilun guíne” (Lobato, 1970), namely the properly urbanised space and the “tin city, ghetto” shanty town, initially characterised by insufficient basic sanitation and improvised hou sing built with makeshift materials.
The massification of urban art in the peripheral area seeks to restore the social status of these areas, historically “ghettoised” by ideological barriers, achieving greater social equality and artistic democratisation.
167 iNtroductory Note
Titos Pelembe, 2022
the city aNd its architecture: suPPort for a MuseuM artistic iNterVeNtioN iN Public sPaces as aN actioN for sociocultural aNd ecoNoMic stiMulus
Ricardo Suárez Acosta
Did you know that urban artists can boast that their works are more visited than large institutional exhibitions? For this and other reasons, don't you think that street art, artistic intervention in public spaces, urban art, has the right to figure in the history of recent art? The die is cast. And did you also know that graffiti is the only artwork prosecuted by law? Let's reflect on that.
A few decades ago, cities around the world were competing for the greatest and most spectacular buildings by accredited and world-famous architects, in a race from which none emerged the winner. Many of these properties were styled in innovative and sophis ticated museum-like and cultural designs that symbolised the wealth or importance of these cities, replacing the magnificent cathedrals or unique buildings in yet another example of how culture trumps religion and aesthetic politics as the most obvious sign of success. In that clash of megalomaniac proportions between the official and the public, in what was a sui generis fashion (not yet completely extinct), we can see the corrupt cadavers and skinned skeletons – alluding directly to the properties that lie vacant or have questionable or limited use – in a “Disneyfied” and “Instagram-able” world, where cultural aspects have become trivialised and what now makes sense is simply “having been in that place”. We live with this stigma that will surely be the subject of in-depth studies in the near future by sociologists and anthropologists, who will determine that in this world way of life we lived an easy, fun-filled life, even though everything remained the same, drained and monotonous.
Today, cities are intended to be sustainable and creative, where uniformity - with marked (in some cases) and inadequate (in so many others) exceptions - is set as an essential premise, leaving behind projects that are pretentious and fatuous, even if spec tacularly innovative. The economy of a past era, which seemed to support everything, is no longer the same as the one in which the world currently operates, and there needs to be a lot of balancing and juggling acts in play to perpetuate that anachronistic sno bbery (now transferred to the ostentatious and immodest countries of the Middle East).
Even so, and with the commitment of urban planners, designers and architects, in today's cities, inherited from an evolution which goes from organic to functional and back to neo-organic - with periods of debate and coexistence between functionalists and organicists -, passing through rationalism, the “international style”, and drifting into post-modernism and contemporary procedures, and in difficult coexistence with history and the past, the same problems persist: the delineation of housing areas, logical circu lation, orientation and free habitability. All this is transferred, in turn, to the development of the city; the attention to human beings as a collective implies a greater complexity
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CEMFAC Management (La Ciudad en el Museo, Foro de Arte Contemporáneo)
of structures, but at the bottom of everything is the absolute need to reconcile problems of sensitivity, which, in the end, only have an aesthetic solution, in the deepest operative sense of the word.
When we speak of this aesthetic solution, we mean eurythmy. But, at this point, where can we find the use of gesture and of colour? Our cities are the environment or the arena for life, an extension of our habitats, our domiciles, they are our homes. If cities have a certain prison-like, monochrome or greyish appearance, it is not only because of the construction materials used, but also due to wear and tear, to their own obso lescence, to atmospheric conditions and aggressive and corrosive pollution. The impor tance of colour is greatly undervalued, as has been shown by the physiological and psy chological changes and reactions human beings experience when exposed to different colours. However, in the history of art, colour has always found its point of connection with the human soul.
It is the residents of the city, in the broadest sense, first and foremost, and the visi tors, secondly, who deserve the vital scenario in which they live to become more affa ble and habitable. Hence the importance of our key subject, urban art, because artis tic intervention in civil space, supported by public administration, together with street art and some manifestations of graffiti, in almost all cases operate within the boundaries of and comply with the conditions that help regenerate these places: they are a catalyst for artistic expression, rescuing the “grey” spaces and strengthening the community. The economic, social, physical and aesthetic benefits brought together by public art are tangible and are always exportable experiences: artistic interventions improve the visual quality of public spaces and promote new social interactions in the environment. Activi ties and increased traffic allow safer and more interesting places for informal encounters that attract new visitors to the place, strengthening and increasing citizens’ participation. There is an improvement in the quality of the urban space experience, with encoun ters becoming more participatory and creativity being stimulated. The place acquires a new meaning and identity in the urban imagery, with different ties and landmarks being generated. The community is strengthened, new use of space is promoted and opportu nities for local commerce are born.
For these and other reasons, artistic intervention in public space, from the perspective of an urban strategy, cannot be reduced to being merely aesthetic in value (thinking of the decorative or ornamental). It is not just about beautifying the city's official arte ries; contemporary art, as a process, reconciles us with the street, with the public scene, with our natural (metropolitan) habitat; it brings us closer to our particular culture and idiosyncrasies and makes our everyday experiences more memorable. This is what improves the relationship between the city and its inhabitants, bringing positive changes not only to its image, but also to the quality of life of its neighbours. This is why we believe that these actions, in which the artist is the creator and mediator, generate not only more beautiful and visually ergonomic cities, but also communities that are more prosperous, deeper-rooted and dynamic.
La Ciudad en el Museo, Foro de Arte Contemporáneo (CEMFAC) [The City in the Museum. Contemporary Art Forum] is a case in point. From the moment it was conceived in 19992000, it was designed as a public art project which proposed to transform the daily tra ffic of passers-by, whether citizens or visitors, through the streets of a city, in this case Los Llanos de Aridane, on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands – Spain), bringing current
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painting closer to the widest possible public; taking it out from the traditional white-cube museum and placing it in the street.
By integrating the interpretations of a visual artist in the chosen spaces and selec ting what appeared to be “black spots” in urbanistic development (division, perimeter and closing walls and façades) for this purpose, the order of the historical identity of an urban centre is shattered and this landmark is given a new meaning, albeit in a positive and respectful way which is in balance with the environment in which it is located. Based on a creative contradiction, right from the start, CEMFAC proposes a rupture and an inte gration of the space between artistic displays so distant in time and design, that cultural inertia is overcome, thereby encouraging passers-by to go beyond a static contempla tion and to rethink their experience of the city itself. Just like any initiative seeking public relevance, this museum was created with the intention of achieving a series of objectives that would improve the quality of the area in question. One of the goals of this innova tive concept for a contemporary painting museum was to achieve high visual and social return and, in turn, to become an alternative to the lack of a sense of culture and leisure underpinning the very origin of museums, often faded due to more importance given to the brick-and-mortar structure of the museum itself than to its content. For some scholars, this situation transforms museums into mere cultural shows, with an occasional attraction for the works of art that, due to the same inertia, are transformed into myths.
The museum itinerary offered by Los Llanos de Aridane opens new possibilities to reco ver that lost or absent sense of culture. A stay in the city is, in itself, a visit to a museum lived in daily, providing a more relaxed reflection on contemporary art by naturally invol ving spectators who enter the space (as if in another dimension) on their daily meanders through the different scenarios that are its fabric, into the urban landscape. Pavements, squares, parks, cafés, bookstores, commerce in general, and everyday life are an essential part of this unusual museum of landscapes where the paintings and murals are visible and surprise passers-by who simply have to look up, separate the details and put them together again to perform their own analysis.
The implementation and management of the project intended, from the outset, to follow a path that would develop and unite culture with social and economic aspects, focu sing on tourism, an undeniably important sector in the Canary Islands, which the island of La Palma only began to exploit fairly recently. Paradoxically, the delayed exploita tion has been advantageous for the region, allowing its progress to mark it as a quality destination in every sense of the word. The tourism on offer is diversified and includes an element of cultural tourism, which is recording an impressive upswing. This tourism encourages the exploitation of natural and cultural resources as an important driver for balanced economic development.
The fact of living in a museum, of being constantly inside it, makes everything that sur rounds us reveal a meaning that perhaps existed once, but that has faded with the course of everyday life. Moreover, by becoming a hub of attraction for new audiences, it unques tionably favours a much broader development. Having a cup of coffee, an aperitif, lunch, or even shopping without ever losing sight of the artwork is an experience where con templation and life intermingle, while simultaneously being a source of income for local businesses.
La Ciudad en el Museo - Foro de Arte Contemporáneo, has been the stage for numerous fairs, seminars, congresses, debates, conferences and expert panels since its inception,
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and it is currently involved in a special unique project of cultural connectivity spanning three continents (Africa, America and Europe). Examples of these internationalisation actions include those carried out in: Maputo (Mozambique), with the creation by the Boa Mistura collective of a large-scale mural on the side façade of the Spanish Techni cal Cooperation Office building, titled “Mulher Capulana” [Capulana Woman] (July, 2021), which aims to show the strength and importance, the empowerment, of women on the African continent; in Fort de France (Martinique-France), with the creation of a large -scale mural by the French artist 3TTMan, titled “Black slaves sweating (cutting cane for the rich)” (June, 2022), which reflects the past reality of the island and its histori cal consequences (initiative linked to the Thousand Murs Festival); and Quito (Ecuador), with the creation of a unique fresco mural by the urban artist Okuda San Miguel, titled “Metaverse Embroiderers” (May 2022), in which his particular vision represents one of the traditional crafts of this Ecuadorian city, embroidery, which has been declared a cul tural heritage (the embroiderers of the Commune of Llano Grande, Calderón Parish). This mural was painted as part of the ambitious urban art project, CaminoArte. The work done in Senegal (Dakar), for the Biennale (2018), in the refugee camps of Tindouf (Algeria) (2019), in Martinique (Fort de France) and the façade mural by Sara Fratini (May 2022) are also worthy of mention.
It is worth highlighting the previously mentioned action carried out in Maputo, in July 2021, which led to the creation of a large mural on the dividing wall of the Spanish Cooperation Technical Office building (Avenida Eduardo Mondlane, 677), commemora ting the 40th Anniversary of the positive collaboration between Spain and Mozambi que. The Boa Mistura collective was in charge of creating this great piece, which clearly reflects the multiculturalism on the African continent, and uses the image of a Mozam bican woman and her capulana as an undeniable echo of the state of empowerment of a nation, of the women of this country, in a vast region wishing to assert and position itself in the world. The image we see today on that big wall resulted from discussions held through workshops with businesswomen involved in cultural and social life and, obviou sly, those who live off the creation and sale of this representative artwork. The women all felt that this piece has allowed them to be “seen”, since they participated in the crea tive process along with the group of Spanish visual artists. The resulting image is of a woman, as if a capulana drawing, supported by different elements, powerful symbols that give strength to the discourse outlined in the workshops: a clenched fist, with a nail painted in pink, symbolising resistance, pride and solidarity; birds, symbolising true love, fidelity and respect; the moon, symbolising femininity, fertility and their cyclical nature; roots, symbolising anchorage, sustenance and birth; and branches of a tree, symbolising decisions and paths taken. Of course, the range of colours used in this piece was also agreed upon by the artists and workshop participants, revealing the importance of colour in the culture and in the art of the past and of the present in Mozambique.
This action was accompanied by training provided to the staff of Maputo City Hall’s cultural division, as well as to the Ministry of Culture, by CEMFAC technical staff. The pur pose of the training was to create awareness among these officers in relation to artistic interventions in public spaces and to explain how to correctly set up an urban art festival, or establish a public art museum, using the dividing walls of buildings, blind façades, peri meter walls and well-defined areas of this important Southern Africa capital of appre ciable urban value; and to do it in a possible ordered labyrinth or museum itinerary with these characteristics, whenever the project aims for temporary permanence.
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It based on and through this cooperation, or so-called “appearances” that the multicul tural reality of the Canary Islands, and in the CEMFAC of the island of La Palma, in parti cular, is understood, showing that it is possible to have dialogue and a fusion of cultures through art. The city of Los Llanos de Aridane has become a tricontinental interlacing of African, European and American proposals connecting and interrelating the realities and uniqueness of urban culture or interventions within the public spaces of those places.
Thus, art represents an ideal path for human understanding. No matter which of its multiple expressions one is dealing with, it is designed as a language in which we can all communicate and establish firm bonds. After all, creations are ways of looking at exis tence that can only find their own raison d’être when shared. Artists seek to awaken the consciousness of their audiences and communicate their concerns through their work.
It must also be explained that, similarly to what happened to these prestigious works of architecture, currently – and for approximately fifteen years now – government admi nistrations of towns and cities are in favour of and even manage artistic interventions in public spaces, implementing public arts projects and holding urban art festivals. The aim of this is to beautify these places and to give them a social, cultural and econo mic boost. Once again, we are faced with a trend, although much more accessible than the one previously mentioned, but with an impact that is, on the whole, comparable. We hope that this trend does not fade and die, leaving artistic carcasses in its wake, since this type of work has an ephemeral component to it that needs to be taken into conside ration, and its degradation must be expected; these artworks must be subjected to res toration operations by their creators or replaced by other pieces. It is the responsibility of those who endorse these actions to ensure the promotion, didactics, teachings, enjoy ment, reflection and knowledge exchange inherent to these initiatives, as well as the preservation of something that becomes, through its creation, a legacy of that territory.
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of ParadigMs
iN urbaN art iN MaPuto
AfroIvan
The history of urban art in the peripheral neighbourhoods of Maputo emerged as a con troversial reaction to the constant disputes over the conventional spaces for displaying and appreciation of national artistic output, in this case the galleries and foreign cultural spaces that are concentrated in the central neighbourhood’s circuit. Following modern tradition, these tend to be discriminatory and thus fail to give value to street art, clas sifying it as an act of vandalism. The term "vandalism" came into use after the French Revolution, at the end of the 18th century, when the noun "vandals" began to be associa ted with destruction motivated by social strife, as suggested in Stephen Kershaw's book, The Enemies of Rome: The Barbarian Rebellion against the Roman Empire (2020).
Maputo, as a small city with colonial roots, was naturally founded on laws of control, segregation and prohibition of the use of public spaces. Contrary to these rules, however, is the fact that the only art school devoted to teaching visual arts, the National School of Visual Arts, was located in the centre of downtown Maputo (from 1983 until 2010, when it was transferred to the outskirts of the city), which undoubtedly contributed to the massification of a type of culture that was confined to closed spaces, both in institutions (museums and galleries) and in artists' studios.
The early 2000s mark the reawakening of various interests in the context of urban art, after the decline in the revolution-related murals that vividly represented the natio nal post-independence scenario. It was during this period that multiple multidisciplinary interventions such as those of David Bonzo, graphic design, video, poetry and hip-hop rhythms emerged. It was also the time when light music, or easy listening music, in gene ral, developed; when the Rastafari culture emerged, which was also very significant in inspiring artistic actions in urban spaces.
The artworks commissioned for prime public spaces in the city by renowned artists such as Malangatana, Naguib and Titos Mabota, among others, had a positive impact and, quite frankly, stirred the imagination of visual arts students who, for the most part, were facing undeniable difficulties in terms of their economic survival. On the other hand, the social constraints suffered by these artists may have ignited in them a craving for guaranteed immediate rewards, a desire that was dashed and, feeling discriminated against, resulted once again in an increased rejection of or distancing from the voluntary spirit, or artivism, that guides the practice of public art. For this reason, the few artworks occupying public spaces in the city are the result of pieces validated/commissioned by groups of the city's economic and social elite.
Public art in the urban context of Maputo had always been commissioned by gover nment institutions. Later on, particularly from the 2000s onwards, there was an expan sion of the platform for artists' intervention, with commissions for advertising art, bill boards or giant murals. Thus, these commissioned works, often educational in nature or sometimes aimed at political campaigns or advertising for everyday products, pro vided an opportunity for the communities’ first contact with murals in public spaces. When more private enterprises entered the market and the demand for murals gained
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( des ) coNstructioN
a market share, it was this type of mural that multiplied the most, outdone only by the revolution-related murals. Since these murals were mostly only for commercial purposes, they failed to contribute to a perception of behavioural change, and to provide a healthy challenge to the fixed mindset or cultural representativeness at the time.
Urban art in Maputo took on new life when independent artists, rebelling against their significant economic difficulties and the difficulty in accessing galleries that could result in the fruit of their work leading to monetary gain, and galvanised by their passion for the arts, began to paint on the walls of their own neighbourhoods. I, myself, am one of these artists. In 2012, I started painting inside Bairro Unidade 7, where I was born and grew up, in an attempt to express the sensitivity of the community and the influence of the traditio nal music that surrounded me (post- independence, particularly around 1980/90, when a Ngalanga (a traditional dance from the south of Mozambique) ensemble of dancers and timbila players from Gaza and Inhambane settled in this neighbourhood. This is the same ensemble that would later inspire other musicians to form bands with the same music genre in the neighbourhoods of Hulene and Polana Caniço).
The irrefutable work of artists such as Shot-B, Mavec, Villa Terry, Mateus Sithole, Kas siano, Djinafita, and others who were part of the new wave of artists who appeared after 2016 provided urban art, especially murals, with increasing social recognition and visibi lity in recent times. Independent street art has now clearly become more significant, with a growing number of murals appearing in the Maxaquene, Polana Caniço and Magoanine neighbourhoods. The richness of their expression and creation was reflected in the works, resulting in a closeness being created between artists and ordinary community mem bers, who saw their urban spaces being transformed into colourful and embellished areas – although with no guarantee of the works lasting for long since walls are often kno cked down, or repainted for new landscapes and signatures are removed. Also, erosion and ageing from exposure to the elements (sun, rain, wind) softens the paint pigments and the murals are gradually destroyed.
This is where photographs play such an important role (photography is, after all, a pio neering urban art which, since the beginning of the 19th century, has become an exten sive archive for all modern life) and it is here, through the lens of Ildefonso Colaço, that the intersection of urban art and photography takes place. This is an artist who also explores the independent creativity of urban art, gracing the space where he lives with his work; recording and building memory and bringing longevity not only to the murals, but also to many other aspects representing human presence in the peripheral landscape.
The performing arts have also discovered a new stage here, with students from theatre and cinema coming together with the same need for expression and recognition within the spaces where they grew up and live their daily lives.
It is also worth mentioning that, similarly to what has been happening in other parts of the world, individualism is also an emerging reality within the Mozambican cultural space. This has been reflected more recently in the growing and interesting participation of female artists, who are also slowly trying to break away from the confines of enclo sed spaces to other more social open-air experiences, where the interaction with their audiences, mainly residents and other newcomers, is more spontaneous.
In Maputo, the freedom to want to intervene in the urban landscape, to transform it, is very marked and is on par with the demand to see one's artistic work displayed
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in galleries. In this sense, an artist’s own investments are the first indicators of one who dreams. Nowadays, the strengthening of social networks has provided a platform for a multiplication of meetings and interactions between the creatives who trained in technical schools and universities, and the many self-taught creatives who are aware of the need to professionalise their skills and empower themselves in the Visual Arts, thereby ensuring their continued activity within an increasingly demanding environment of cultural manifestations.
Thus, the recent and striking pervasiveness of urban art in the peripheral nei ghbourhoods of Maputo represents the embodiment of freedom of expression and of the possibility to transform neglected and abandoned spaces into open-air galleries, with the added intrinsic historical value that comes from a greater and more immediate harmony with the different themes directly involving residents in real time and space. The relationship between the artist and an unconventional audience is deeper and more expressive, because of the open curiosity of those watching the artists performing their work “live”. This is one of the points I find most important when producing urban art and which, in my opinion, gives richness to the multitude of purposes for creating this type of art, from simple entertainment to storytelling, educating or even influencing beha vioural change in economically underprivileged communities.
This publication, which includes from among its different contributors, photogra phic contributions by IIdefonso Colaço and textual contributions by Titos Pelembe (who is also a visual artist), intends to safeguard, record and be a testament to an historical era of contemporary urban art in the city of Maputo, simultaneously establishing models and challenges for the use of urban space, and stirring a visual and cultural regene ration of the urban community, from the peripheral neighbourhoods to the upmarket neighbourhoods of Maputo. Our desire is for this rare reversal to become a springboard for further dialogue.
Furthermore, the creative diversity along with the quality of other approaches and techniques and the mapping of urban art on murals both within and outside the city, validate the importance of this book, with its different applications, design and practi ces, as reference material for students and aficionados of street art. The artists involved in this type and in other expressions of urban art, whether voluntarily or unconsciously, are deeply grateful.
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street art: backgrouNd, challeNges aNd New PersPectiVes
Titos Pelembe
Past aNd PreseNt
Artistic expression in public spaces dates back to the beginning of human civilizations as is evidenced through cave paintings. Generally speaking, the various expressions of artwork keep pace with the technological, social and political progression of mankind. For this reason, several contemporary studies focus on the rise and concepts of “urban art” or “public art”. In Mozambique, in particular, urban art or creating art in public spaces also originates from older traditions. From this perspective, our interest is to situate urban art based on two bipolar contexts, more specifically the colonial period and the post-revolutionary period, from 1975 to the present.
Some artwork from the colonial era, namely murals or statues, were intended as dis tinctive symbols of Portuguese colonial power and were situated in specific built-up areas of enormous social importance. To this day, some of this visual art still enriches the city's architectural and urban landscape. Included among some of the visual art that stands out we have: the polychrome ceramic panel by the Portuguese artist Querubim Lapa (1925-2016), on the façade of old Bank of Mozambique building (former Headquar ters of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino) and the Monument to the Dead of World War I (European and African Combatants) (1931), by the sculptor Rui Roque Gameiro (19061936), on display at the Praça dos Trabalhadores [Workers' Square]. Included among other works are two large bronze sculpted panels, by the sculptor António Duartes, and an uni dentified medium-sized one in marble, sculpted using basso-relievo and alto-relievo [low and high relief] sculpture techniques, embedded in the façade of the Rádio Moçambique building. There are also several architectural works of art by the famous architect Pancho Guedes, that can be seen on the façades and gables of some of his emblematic buildings throughout the city, as well as the panel by the artist António Quadros at the branch of the Millennium BIM bank, on the corner of Av. 24 de Julho and Av. Salvador Allende.
During the turbulent times of the post-independence revolution (1975), some of the artwork symbolising colonial power and sovereignty were removed from their public places of display, while others, particularly monumental sculptures, were destroyed. This was the case of the statue of Mouzinho de Albuquerque, which was removed from the square, now called Praça da Independência [Independence Square], and replaced with an imposing statue of the first president of independent Mozambique, Samora Moisés Machel (b.1933-1986).
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The second period occurred in the post-colonial era, and is linked to the celebration of national independence in 1975. This was a natural occurrence in the years following independence and was marked by the resurgence of popular artistic activities, seen through the conceptual lenses of urban art. These exhibitions of art were closely tied to the national revolution, and took into account the potential cultural offensive of the working classes which, at the time, aimed to instigate, among other issues, critical awa reness of the horrors of colonialism and, as a result, cultivated the consolidation of natio nalistic values.
Several public festivals were held throughout the country, including the Popular Art Exhibition (1975), the National Cultural Meeting (1977) and the 1st National Popular Dance Festival (1978), which brought together, “for the first time, dances from all over the country” (Costa, 2013:261). For this reason, there was great preference for artwork to be created in public spaces, sometimes on the initiative of the artists themselves, and other times commissioned by institutions. The impressive mural by the artist João Craveirinha, nephew of the renowned poet José Craveirinha, painted in 1979 at the Praça dos Heróis Moçambicanos [Mozambican Heroes’ Square], is one example of this trend. In addition to depicting the different periods of the country’s recent history, this mag nificent piece of art also contributed to disseminating revolutionary thought through the visual arts.
Although several other art mediums such as Sculpture, Drawing, Painting, Installation Art, Assemblage and bas-relief were centre stage and continue to be explored as expres sions of art at the service of the revolution, painting prevails as the artistic medium of choice. Naturally, changes have been introduced over time by the different inter-ge nerational characters that comprise the nation’s artistic fabric. The preference for pain ting over other art mediums is perhaps linked to the long tradition of painting and to the fact that the materials required for this medium are cheaper and much simpler to use on any kind of surface. Or, perhaps, this preference is driven by the ease with which mate rials can be handled, acquired and adapted, compared to other art mediums.
The 1980s and 1990s were significantly marked by urban art activities, particularly murals loaded with strong nationalist symbolism inspired by the dream of (re)building the “new man” and the Mozambican nation, as described in the book “Images of a Revo lution” (1984), by the South African jurist and human rights activist, Albie Sachs.
Culture was one of the forms of art used to promote social cohesion and “the Natio nal Directorate of Culture was the vehicle used to implement the policies defined at the time”. It aimed at “valuing Mozambican culture, creating a revolutionary and popular culture that translated the experiences of the People into society’s transformation pro cess - fighting the culture of the bourgeoisie...” (Costa, 2013-248).
This period saw an increase in the number of mural paintings and the creation of pos ters, comic strips, caricatures and information walls, known as the “people’s newspaper”. Different social activists as well as professional, beginner and popular artists contributed
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the role of Murals iN the cultural reVolutioN Process
to these actions. This entire group of artists played, and continue to play, a very relevant role in the revolution and, consequently, in the establishment of the new Mozambican society.
Artists such as Malagantana, Mankew, Noel Langa, and Shikhane all participated in different ways, producing commissioned murals and other works of art throughout the country, particularly in the cities of Maputo, Beira and Tete. An example of this is the mural “O Homem e a Natureza” [Man and Nature], located outside the Museum of Natural History, painted by Malangatana between 1977 and 1979.
PreseNt
More recently, the works of the multifaceted Naguib and his urban art, where he explo res the use of mediums and techniques not previously used or seemingly little explored locally, such as mosaic and the combination of different materials, are worthy of special attention. Belonging to the 60’s generation, Naguib has been revitalising urban art since 2006 through his extensive mosaic murals, with his emblematic works of art set in several prominent locations within the city of Maputo and in the town of Songo, Tete Province, near the Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric Power Station.
However, more recently there have been many contemporary artists, in addition to the ones mentioned before, who have continued the urban art movement, primarily through graffiti, street art and muralism. These artists are, in turn, particularly dedicated to rege nerating abandoned and neglected spaces, located mainly in the peripheral areas, and to using public spaces within the urban centre of the city of Maputo.
The tendency of the arts in these events is to accompany the social development of nations or simply of the communities. In the case of Mozambique, specifically, the 1990s were characterised by a flood of artistic activities. The first international visual arts workshop was held in 1991, at the Núcleo de Arte, organised by the artist Fátima Fer nandes (Costa, 2013:347), and was followed by other events, specifically: Ujamaa I, II and IV. This openness was the result of several social, political and economic transformations in the national, regional and global environment. At a political level, the new Constitu tion of the Republic (1990) was implemented following the successful negotiations that brought about an end to the civil war between the Renamo and Frelimo parties, which began as a reaction to Frelimo having adopted the role of a single ruling party in a one -party regime. Civil war broke out in 1977 and devastated the country’s development until its apparent appeasement, which culminated in the signing of the first General Peace Agreement (Rome-1992). A multiparty regime was introduced following the end of mili tary hostilities between Mozambican brothers, resulting in the first general elections being held in 1994. Another event worth mentioning among the several events unfolding at regional and global level at the time, is end of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
As a result of this, there was an opening for greater circulation of artists and opportu nities arose for Mozambican artists to participate in international events such as inter nships, art biennials, workshops and exhibitions. This provided several young Mozambi can artists, mostly either in training at the time or recently graduated from the National
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School for Visual Arts, with the opportunity to participate in and benefit from local and international workshops and other types of exhibitions.
During this period, some anonymous cultural trendsetters and descendants of the revolutionary Mozambican Hip hop movement, born in the 1970s and 1980s, were con sidered to be the pioneers in the use of graffiti and tagging in street art. Some of the artists trained by the National School of Arts and still currently active in the urban arts scene are Shot B (Bruno Mateus), Afroivan (António Ivan Muhambe) and Bruno Chichava, among others of equal importance. Coincidentally, the performances and works of the urban artists mentioned here were strongly influenced by the national and international Hip hop culture, with some of these artists actually being involved in the Hip hop move ment itself.
Other notable emerging artists can be added to this group of multidisciplinary artists and graffiti artists, namely Kassiano, Djinafita, Sebastião Coana, Mateus Sithole, Barimu, Doglas, Djive Make Studio, Amino and Chaná de Sá. These artists have recently produced important works within the context of urban art in the cities of Maputo and Inhambane, covering a broad spectrum of art forms including the ephemeral, performance and per manent public arts.
a look at the NarratiVe of urbaN art
There is a pressing need to portray the country’s current and historical reality through the unique lens of urban artists, and to construct a visual identity which is autonomous and independent from the political agendas of the ruling parties. One of the main obs tacles faced by this group of professionals remains the desideratum to see their works displayed.
For this reason, a considerable part of the works comprising the city’s urban art seeks to reflect on the cultural reality as a way of highlighting the different cultural, social and political aspects, as well as the national figures intrinsically associated with the natio nalist revolution and the country’s development process. Murals by the artists Shot B, Francisco Vilankulos, Kassiano, Chaná de Sá and Mateus Sithole, among others, repeate dly revisit the collective memories of the past and the present.
The works of Afroivan, Djinafita, Sebastião Coana, Samuel Djive, however, which gene rally fall within the previous vision, propose a creative adventure around the urban imagi nation, where fantasy, myth and the contemporary social portrait rooted in African iden tity is constantly referred to. This narrative, re-centred by Afrocentrism, has also found a place in the collaborative murals produced by international artists and communities (Jonathan Darby, Andy Leuenberger, Zallicus Alice Zaniboni and Boa Mistura).
The works of renowned Mozambican artists (Naguib and Titos Mabota) are no excep tion to this, and blend different approaches. For example, Naguib's extensive mosaic mural “Ode a Samora Machel” [Ode to Samora Machel] (2007) speaks to the thematic issues raised, but also aims to significantly improve the aesthetic quality of the urban space in which it is located. The sculpture by Mabota, commissioned by the mobile tele phone company TMcel, is an expression of praise for the massification and development
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of the Mozambican mobile network and its accessibility to the populations in the coun try’s interior regions.
the MultidisciPliNarity aNd iNforMality of urbaN art
The concept of both urban space and of public space allude to a mutuality of interests and common use, which is why urban or public art also contributes to a common good. Urban art works as a channel that provides free artistic enjoyment, regenerates neglec ted or derelict spaces and improves the aesthetic quality of common spaces, and is also a channel for cultural education and much more.
In line with the previous reflection, we are offered a better perspective of the place ment of the ephemeral works by the artist Kassiano, displayed in randomly or previously selected public spaces at different points of the city, which he visits each evening, the reby giving his work a certain element of the performative arts.
His works include portraits of various famous or anonymous figures, painted on paper or cardboard and displayed in the streets, on various urban infrastructures such as streetlamps, fence walls, building façades as well as on tree trunks. This form of art dis play is also used by Afroivan, who uses street furniture in the city centre for his tagging.
According to the concepts shared by researcher and professor José Guilherme Abreu (2015), the concept of public art is multidisciplinary and much broader than simple recur rent expressions such as muralism, and artists in this field explore techniques of graf fiti, painting, mosaic, assemblage, installation art, sculptures, etc. For example, inclu ded within context of urban art we have artists or street entertainers who commonly express themselves through music, dance, theatre and the performing arts in general. It is, therefore, not uncommon to see different forms of street entertainment by different groups in Maputo’s streets, markets and places of leisure. Some of the better-known artists and groups include W Tofo Tofo, Robotizzy Shonguile Arte, as well as the “madalas” (adult men), anonymous poet-singers who generally perform meandering between local community markets.
Public art can also take on any medium, material or form of presentation, as long as it is produced for enjoyment by the masses and presented on the urban stage. As a result, artists performing in this field normally end up playing the role of social activists, using art as a form of social protest and counterweight of the communities. An example of one such artistic movement or action, among a series of initiatives, is the project “Maputo Street Art, Bring Back Maputo”.
New coNteMPorary deVeloPMeNts
The beginning of the 21st century saw significant changes in terms of urban art, resulting not only from various challenges relating to the new social, political and economic orders in the country but also from new practices driven by local, regional and international
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contexts to which the country was exposed following the end of the civil war in 1992. Generally speaking, the arts were not unaffected by these new changes and new aspiring artists, born in the 1980s, began to emerge. Some of these artists began their training in the arts in 2000 and later years, attending different courses and different levels of spe cialisation at the National School for Visual Arts (ENAV).
The social cohesion and intersection of all previous events led to a distancing of the artistic discourse from the institutionalised art galleries and museums. Some initiatives, including workshops and exhibitions organised by ENAV in partnership with international artists and organisations, were specifically organised to be held in the streets of Maputo. “Ocupações Temporárias” [Temporary Occupations] was one of the projects from the early years of the second decade of this century (2011-2013), produced and coordinated by the Portuguese curator Elisa Santos, in which two Mozambican urban artists participated, namely Shot B and the rapper Azagaias.
Numerous local public artworks, commissioned mainly by enterprises, have been set in urban spaces. Highlighted from the most recent of many of these corporate contribu tions is the collective painting of the EDM mural (2017), the façade of the Maputo Cen tral Hospital building, involving both teachers and students from the National School of Visual Arts, the regeneration of the “Praça dos Combatentes” [Combatants' Square] and the “Monumento em Homenagem à Organização da Mulher Moçambicana (OMM)” [Mozambican Women’s Organisation Monument] by the artist Naguib, and the statue of the national hero Filipe Samuel Magaia, to mention just a few.
Further on, we will present several other interventions, proposed by the artists them selves, that have taken place in different areas of the city, more specifically in the neglec ted public spaces both in the city centre itself and in the peripheral neighbourhoods. This increasingly important movement has, in part, been massified through the Maputo Street Art project, involving a significant number of youths who are interested in urban art, namely: Afroivan, Kassiano, Djinafita, Manaventane, Matheus Sithole, Ildafonso Colasso, Phayra Baloi, Amarildo Rungo and others. In highlighting these artists, we in no way wish to ignore or underrate the works of other artists who came before them in this initiative, but who worked individually.
It is important to remember that, although there had been progressive growth of art outside of the official exhibition circuits before the Maputo Street Art project existed, it had been slow, unstable and insignificant. New pieces were produced in planned, spon taneous and hybrid manners in abandoned or neglected locations in the city. New pio neering painting techniques and materials were introduced, such as cans of spray paint used for the famous graffiti and tagging art. Some of the more notable young artists from the 2000s include Shot B, Mavec, among others. Throughout his career as a graffiti artist, and more recently a rapper, Shot B repeatedly produced art in urban spaces, either as commissioned work or painted freely on his own initiative. One example of his work is the extensive mural painted along the OUA Avenue between 2010 and 2012 (unfor tunately, a significant part of this piece no longer exists, having been erased as a result of social and political censure or repression). He also has other pieces in different points of the city and periphery, most notably his recent mural with the title “Let My People Go” (2022), painted within the Mafalala neighbourhood. In 2020, Shot B collaborated with another artist, Fraime 1, to produce the emblematic mural on the outer wall of the Gallery, next to the Port of Maputo. The piece of art in question aims to immortalise
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the faces of some of the prominent figures in the advancement of the Arts and Literature in Mozambique, namely: Alberto Chissano, Noémia de Sousa, João Craveirinha, Malan gatana, and Fany Mpfumo.
It is vitally important to highlight the progress and the gradual massification of other techniques, such as high-relief, bas-relief and mosaic, within the landscape of the growth of public art in Mozambique. Inspired by the multifaceted artist Naguib, in around 2006 this latter technique began to take on a new role in the capital’s artistic arena. Perhaps one of his most notable pieces is the famous approximately 700-metre-long mosaic mural “Ode a Samora Machel” (2007), inlaid into the retaining wall of the “museum slope” on the extension of Avenida Marginal, in Maputo. The art of mosaicking has been used by other emerging artists, including Samuel Arão Djive, author of the mural on the façade of the Embassy of Thailand, on the extension of Avenida Julius Nyerere, and Marcelino Manhuma, the mind behind the mural at the National Football Association’s premises.
rise of the coMMercial Murals (2000 - 2010)
The first multi-party elections (1994) and the ensuing new socioeconomic and cul tural environment and consequent adoption of the international financial system, i.e., the so-called “market economy”, made Mozambique more attractive to private foreign investment. The inflow of international funding may have also (in)directly dictated a new path for artistic expression, with the previously dominant role of the arts portraying the revolution gradually slowing down and being replaced by novel types of “commercial murals”, which quickly flooded the streets, avenues and main points of attraction in the city. Large multinationals were now competing in the race to occupy this urban space, resulting in the few fundamentally artistic murals situated in unprotected areas disa ppearing from the urban landscape, being replaced by a deluge of commercial murals. An example of this is the murals painted by the group of artists from the Achufre Cultural Association, which have practically all been destroyed, leaving behind an urban lands cape impregnated with commercial content, which is still visible at present.
Tembo Sinanhal (2016), an artist and visual arts teacher, argues this problem as follows:
There has been a significant increase in the number of billboards and posters placed on façades and walls in Maputo and Matola, as well as in paintings portraying commer cial content and advertisements for goods and services. These billboards monopolise the public spaces, and are used as marketing battlefields in the promotion of consume rism, one of the strategies of capitalism (2016:7).
Although the reality of the image portrayed in Sinanhal’s argument is clearly evident within the two cities (Maputo and Matola), various factors have led to a reduction in this deluge of content in recent years. One of the reasons for this drop may be the evo lution of technical communication platforms and the consequent digitalisation of ser vices, allied to a growing awareness of society at large and, above all, of some artists who began to equate public spaces with an expanded democratic platform for better enjoyment of the arts and its decentralisation from the city centre to the outskirts of the city. This factor may be regarded as one of the more relevant contemporary aspects to be considered in justifying the massive reappearance, for the first time in national history, of purely artistic murals, as art for the sole sake of art. The predominant subjects
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addressed in these murals are creative issues and social problems that directly reflect the artists’ voices, free from any of the political or party-related limitations associated with murals and other monuments produced in the colonial and post-colonial context.
For some people, this happy turnaround in the massification of urban art through muralism (graffiti, tagging, mosaics and paintings) represents a continuation of the cul tural revolution once experienced by artists from the pre-independence generation from both the Mafalala neighbourhood and abroad, based on the ideological reference of the famous “Black Culture Renaissance” in Harlem, United States of America, in the early twentieth century (Fohlen.1973:40). The evidence of cultural resilience in the face of cur rent sociocultural and economic challenges can be seen in the recent (re)emergence of several urban cultural movements and spaces, such as “Eu Sou do Gueto” [“I’m From the Ghetto”], “Maputo Street Art”, “Mafalala Museum and Utopia Project”, “Piriquita’s Restaurant and Gallery” and “Hodi Maputo Swing and Polana Creative Space”, the latter two of which are located in the Polana Caniço neighbourhood. It within this cosmos of events that the current scenario of flourishing urban art in the capital city has found its roots.
the JourNey of urbaN art iN the ceNtre aNd PeriPheries of MaPuto
Shot B and Fraime 1 (2020)
Gallery - Maputo Port. Martires de Inhaminga Avenue
This mural was co-authored by two artists (Shot B and Fraime 1) and aims to immorta lise the life and works of different nationalist personalities, famous for promoting Mozam bican arts, literature and culture, namely, Noémia de Sousa, Chissano, José Craveirinha, Malangatana and João Albasine. This piece was produced in 2020 for the opening of the Galeria, a cultural space located next to the Port of Maputo.
Noémia de Sousa (1926 - 2022) a Mozambican writer and journalist and author of the remarkable book of poems “Sangue Negro” [Black Blood], is considered the “mother of Mozambican poets”. Alberto Chissano (1933-1995), better known as Chissano in the art world, was a visual artist and sculptor who belonged to the first generation of national artists. José Craveirinha (1922 - 2003), is considered Mozambique's greatest poet. In 1991, he became the first African author to be awarded the Camões Prize, the most important literary prize in the Portuguese language. Malangatana (1936-2011), a multidisciplinary artist, is considered one of the symbols of modern African painting. And finally, Fany Mpfumo, (1928 - 1987), is commonly known as the “King” of Marrabenta, having recorded several hit songs during his career, including Loko ni kumbuka Jorgina (When I Remember Jorgina).
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Maputo Central Hospital
National School of Visual Arts
This piece is the result of a partnership between the National School of Visual Arts (ENAV) and the Hospital’s management. Teachers and students from ENAV worked col lectively to produce this mural. This piece, containing the portraits of former Mozam bican presidents before Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, aims to illustrate the government’s efforts to increasingly improve the quality and multiplicity of medical services offered by the Maputo Central Hospital over the years, from independence to the present day. This mural also seeks to highlight the value of the work performed by the vast medical team and other health professionals who contribute daily to improving the health services provided.
Matthew Sithole
“Mercado do Peixe” | Avenida da Marginal (2021) [Fish Market]
“O sonho Muda o Mundo” |Campo April de 7 - Polana Caniço A (2020) [Dreams Change the World]
This painting by Mateus Sithole, located along the waterfront near Costa do Sol, seeks to highlight the tourist potential of the beautiful beaches and the abundance of sus tainable seafood on sale at the fish market. The value chain from this commercial sea food activity is the main source of income for many families, not only those living along the coast. Mozambique’s seafood has been a calling card for those visiting, and in a con text of local tourism, it is undoubtedly one of the privileged attractions. Mateus's pieces have very a characteristic figurative and pictorial quality, which immediately draws a variety of audiences.
The set of murals produced in the sports grounds of Polana Caniço “A”, more spe cifically at Campo 7 de Abril, aims to encourage the participation in and massification of women's sports as a means of promoting gender equality. This piece portrays several contemporary figures in women’s sports from among the locally known aspiring players and those already known in the international arena. This piece also portrays some of the highlights of some international championships, namely the FIFA women’s world cup, held in France in 2019.
Kassiano
The “A Voz do Povo” series [Voice of the People]
Polana Caniço - Vlademir Lenine Avenue
Maxaquene - Rua da Costa do Sol
Kassiano is one of the young emerging urban artists whose work seeks to refresh our collective memory by painting and drawing portraits of public figures in politics, the visual ats, literature and music, as well as other social areas. He has repeatedly pain ted portraits of the first president of Mozambique, Samora Moisés Machel, the musician and social activist Azagaia, and the author Mia Couto. These pieces are normally drawn or painted free-hand or with the aid of stencils and placed or tagged throughout the city onto specific structures such as public street lamps and lamp posts, fence walls and other urban fixtures.
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This artist also uses anonymous people as subjects in the portraits he paints and recrea tes, normally from among those residing in the city’s urban peripheral areas. Kassiano, like other artists, has managed to break through geographical and institutional barriers through urban art. His artwork also contributes to the extensive process of decentralising artistic enjoyment from the city centre to its urban peripheries.
Chaná de Sá
“Os Heróis do Desporto da Mafalala” (2021) [Mafalala’s Sports Heroes]
Campinho da Mafalala - Rua Eusébio da Silva Perreira
Mafalala is one Maputo’s suburban neighbourhoods best known for its rich ethnic, cul tural and historical diversity which dates back to the colonial past. Its typical architec ture made up of old, ruined wooden and zinc houses, while tracing the passage of time, safeguards the memories and traditions of the people. Furthermore, Mafalala is cele brated as a cultural, political and sporting bastion of the Mozambican intellectual elite and of the movement for national liberation from Portuguese colonial oppression. Seve ral famous personalities with roots in this neighbourhood have been highlighted in this mural, painted on the wall of Mafalala’s sports field, including the bullfighter Ricardo Chibanga, Eusébio da Silva Ferreira and Hilário da Conceição. Chibanga became world famous in 1971, in Seville, Spain, as the “the matador maestro”, the first African bullfigh ter. Eusébio, the “Black Panther”, is widely considered one of the best footballers of all time and is the greatest symbol of the Benfica football club and of Portuguese football. Lastly, Hilário who, throughout his career, stood out for his service to Sporting Clube de Portugal. He would later become coach and assistant coach.
The Mafalala sports field, where this mural is located, was frequented by several famous personalities who played football there and carried out other activities; it is considered to be a place of cultural interest. Chaná de Sá not only paid tribute to the well-known personalities mentioned above, but also portrayed aspects of local life by including other people, particularly children and youth, who represent the continuity and development of the neighbourhood and the country.
Jonathan Darby “Judith Novela” (2017) Malhangalene
This piece by the international muralist of English origin, Jonathan Darby, is known worldwide for its conceptual and technical quality. The artist left his mark during his pas sage through the city of acacias (Maputo), where he depicts the dream and the parado xical condition of children’s vulnerability, seen through the solemn and profound gaze expressed in the painted portrait of the Mozambican ballerina Judith Novela. Jonathan's painting is characterised by the combination of two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements together with soft layers of paint that contrast with the noisy and rough back drop of the wall. This technique allows the artist to create an illusion of optical movement, as if the image were an audio-visual projection on the wall. The artistic expression of the wall's worn-out background is explored based on the message that is intended to be communicated. Thus, in this piece, Judith's portrait is crisscrossed by the print stains of apparently illegible phrases and by children's drawings, as if she were trying to decode their meaning. However, the piece also transports us to an extremely ironic situation,
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as if through this piercing gaze Judith were witnessing the decay of children’s rights and values, both locally and globally. In his work, Jonathan Darby usually explores socio -political and humanitarian issues in vulnerable urban contexts, where children become the main victims of social, political and economic oppression, and this is clearly expressed in this piece.
Amino
“O olhar da Mulher Macua I and II” (2022) [Gaze of the Macua Woman I and II]
Unit 7
This piece is simply a fascinating recreation of the face of the Macua woman, where the artist explores the beauty and plasticity of the unique features of the “Muthiana Horera” - the beautiful woman from northern Mozambique, as she is popularly called. Her serene gaze steers us to the endless contemplation of a horizon roving between emerald blue tones mixed with light tones of pink, white, brown and orange. The blue colour evokes the beauty of the Indian Ocean, the island of Mozambique or even the won ders of Lake Niassa and other national tourist attractions. The apparently simple contour of the black hair, free from any adornments, is used to express the feeling of self-es teem and determination regarding the currently prevailing standards of female beauty in urban centres and in the world. Ironically, viewing this outdoor painting gives us an optical illusion of the woman carrying the metal roofing sheets and objects piled on the roof of the wall on which this piece is painted, on her head. Could this be a concealed message expressing the strength and resistance of Mozambican women who fight adver sities on a daily basis? Nonetheless, this piece encourages each of us reflect subjectively on the latent values associated with its formal, chromatic and visual appearance.
Francisco Vilanculos
Mafalala
This mural by the artist Francisco Vilanculos, now living in Switzerland, sings Mafalala’s praises as one of the open-air historical centres of Maputo’s suburbs. It also places par ticular emphasis on the material and immaterial cultural heritage of the neighbourhood by immortalising its habits and customs in this mural that depicts the activities of the “Tufo da Mafalala” cultural group.
The group is made up exclusively by women from Nampula province, i.e., “Muthianas Horera”, which means “beautiful women”. Men participate in this group simply as ins trumentalists. The group claims that, historically, the traditional dance is of Arab origin and is associated with the Muslim religion, and it is usually performed at ceremonies and festivities based on the Islamic calendar. Thus, this Mozambican traditional dance and culture is kept alive in this piece by Vilanculos. The typical urban landscape of Mafa lala, characterised by a mixture of houses, unorderly and mobile stalls is also depicted in the mural. Moreover, the artist seeks to portray the ethnic miscegenation, unequal movements of the residents between men, women, old people and children that enrich the urban integration of Mafalala.
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“Tufo da Mafala” (2016)
Khandlelo Youth Development Association
“Reviver a arte para a sua regeneração” (2019) [Reviving art for its regeneration]
Corner of Avenida Carlos Morgado and Avenida de Angola.
Historically, the Airport neighbourhood has been known as a bastion of Mozambican arts and culture since colonial times, when this neighbourhood was inhabited by renow ned craftsmen and artists. Today, the legacy passed on by the elders of previous gene rations is being continued by other younger cultural creators who are emerging from the neighbourhood. This is why many multidisciplinary cultural players still reside in the neighbourhood, particularly artists working with sculptures, painting, drawing, batik and handicrafts. It is in this context that the mural “Reviving Art for its Regeneration”, painted collectively by local artists who are members of the Association for Youth Deve lopment - Khandlelo, was painted. The mural is part of the “Regeneration of Nlhamankulu - The citizen as a protagonist of community development” project, which aims to pro mote social, economic, cultural and civic activities in the district. Thus, the Association’s young artists decided to pay humble tribute to the neighbourhood and to its legendary artists, including Malangatana and Alberto Chissano, among others. This gesture rein forces the effort to encourage and lift up the visual arts among the younger generations and society at large, in order to ensure the continuation of artistic traditions between generations.
Doglas
Up Town - Bar do Chapeu (2021)
Polana Caniço - Rua da Costa do Sol
Polana Caniço is one of the neighbourhoods in the city that has been cultivating the tradition of urban art since the 2000s. This has been substantiated over time by the local cultural groups and movements involved in the different cultural fields. Some of the main recreational activities in Polana Caniço include music such as Marrabenta, Hip hop, and Rock and Roll, dancing, games, traditional tales, visual arts and football. For this reason, expressions of art in public spaces through simple paintings and complex murals is routine practice here. Artists generally create their paintings in recreational, com mercial and educational spaces such as bar stalls, beauty salons, school lobbies, and on the walls of sports fields, as is the case of the most recent murals by the local artist Mateus Sithole, on the grounds of the 7 de Abril sportsgrounds.
Other muralists, more specifically the late Madoro, ripped too early from the living world, along with Paulino and later Mário and more recently Doglas, have contributed significantly to the development of urban art. Fifteen years ago, it was common to see murals depicting popular themes taken from traditional Mozambican paintings, inspired by the powerful paintings by the master Malangatana. In addition, monstrous images of the Rock and Roll underworld were also painted, along with portraits of famous world -known personalities such as Mickael Jackson, Mandela, Bob Marley, Lucky Dube, Samora Machel and others, seen in the current works painted on the façade of the famous “UP Town”, a bar owned by the young entrepreneur Chapeu.
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Recreation of Historical Facts: means to reinvent or simply to reconstitute a certain reality or historically relevant event, thus giving it another meaning and interpretation. This exercise implies that the artist creates new images, scenarios and real or imaginary meanings about a certain event, but without necessarily limiting himself to a faithful representation of the facts or objects in question. In this context, the artist has the freedom to (re)create new visual narratives. Among several works, Naguib's mural “Ode a Samora Machel”, which is a tribute to the figure of Mozambique's first president Samora Moisés Machel, fits perfectly into this context. For this purpose, the artist did not use the process of figuratively representing the person who was honoured. That is why Naguib, through his capacity for imagination, created subjective scenarios and visual compositions to talk about a figure and relevant situations in the context of national history. Likewise, “O Mural de Malhagalene” [The Malhangalene Muralo] by João Timane also fits into this context, since it presents a hybrid visual narrative, with the mural being composed of portraits of different emblematic figures integrated in various artistic compositions of an illustrative and geometric nature. Other works aligned in the images follow the same direction and the same thematic principle.
Naguib
“Os percursos de Água” (2008) [Water Flows]
Maxaquene water reservoir. Amilcar Cabral Avenue
“Ode a Samora Machel” (2007) [Ode to Samora Machel]
“Monumento da Praça da Organização da Mulher Moçambicana” [Monument at Mozambican Women’s Organisation Square. OMM Square.
Naguib’s murals portray a variety of themes, as can be seen in each of his emblematic works of art in public spaces, notably in the mural “Ode a Samora Machel”, inlaid into the retaining wall along Maputo’s waterfront avenue. This work immortalises the figure of the first president of the People's Republic of Mozambique, Samora Moisés Machel, based on his critical and visionary thought regarding the country’s governance. It also recreates various historical, mythological and environmental scenarios from Mozambi can folk tradition. “Os Percursos de Água” is another mural made of mosaic, inlaid on the wall at the FIPAG (Maxaquene) water reservoir on the corner of Eduardo Mondlane and Amilcar Cabral avenues. In the images of this piece, the artist has portrayed the dif ferent stages of the course of water, highlighting its importance to the social, cultural and economic life of the communities. The mural also points out the impact that water has on the creation and continuity of aquatic biodiversity.
This artist also uses sculptures in his urban art, as can be seen in the “Monumento em Homenagem à Organização da Mulher Moçambicana – OMM” [Monument in Homage to the Mozambican Women's Organisation], located in the square with the same name. In this monument, Naguib explores the role of Mozambican women from the beginning of the struggle for national liberation up to the conquest of national independence in 1975, and also highlights the role of girls' education in the social development process.
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DjiveMäki Studio
“A União Cultural entre os Povos de Moçambique e Tailândia” (2017) [The Cultural Union between the Peoples of Mozambique and Thailand]
Façade of the Embassy of Thailand. Julius Nyerere Avenue
Djive's work portrays the beauty and the movements of daily urban life in the city of Maputo as a cosmopolitan territory experiencing a constant process of urban, social, cultural and economic transformation. He also portrays it as a space where the exchange of cultural experiences, par excellence, occupies a privileged space in everyday life, thus justifying the hybridisation of Mozambican and Thai cultural aspects in this work. The backdrop of eastern architecture also reflects elements of the spatial connection between the two countries.
João Timane
“Mural da Malhangalene” (2020) [Malhangalene Mural]
Malhangalene
The reproduction of Mozambique’s historical, socio-political and cultural truths through the arts, particularly murals created in public spaces, has been a recurrent prac tice in recent times and the “Mural da Malhangalene” is no exception. It joins other murals on the city streets, such as the imposing “Praça dos Heróis” mural, painted in 1979. Here, João Timane’s artistic narrative centres on the facts, the collective memory and the sel f-construction of a personal identity. This work portrays not only sacred personalities, the symbols of colonial resistance and conquest of national independence (Eduardo Mon dlane, Samora Moisés Machel, Alberto Chissano, etc.), but also the contemporary dreams, fantasies and social problems. Issues concerning affection, love of neighbour, promotion of education (for girls in particular), peace and national security, and combating poaching are some of the concerns depicted in this mural. Other issues also depicted in this mural include the country’s potential for tourism through music, literature and other events. In short, this piece is a celebration of the history, the present and the hope that keeps alive the dream of a better future.
Afrocentricity and Subjective Creations: we highlight that Afrocentricity is an ideo logy that recognises Africans as agents and not as objects of their own history, in order to pursue their cultural, historical and philosophical self-determination, in line with the thinking of the philosopher and historian Molefi Kete Asante (1980). Those works whose thematic narratives consciously explore the symbols and a whole set of material and intangible elements that constitute the African cultural heritage fall into this perspec tive. The use or appropriation of these elements in the visual representations in question transcends the commonly trivialised folkloric dimension. Thus, the re-signification of Afri can/Mozambican cultural identity from a perspective of Afrocentrism seeks to destroy stereotypical conceptions of knowledge of history, values and the meaning of being Afri can in contemporary times. This thought is also specifically displayed in the works of the pan-Africanist artist and activist Afroivan. Additionally, the mural by the Spanish urban art collective Boa Mistura is also conceptually based around Afrocentric thinking.
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Afroivan
Bairro Central, Maxaquene, Unit 7 and Mafalala.
Afroivan's work is divided between the introspective (re)creation of visual forms focu sed on Afrocentric aesthetics in constant coordination with the representation of the contemporary urban landscape. This has, in turn, been the source of his portrayal of the daily movements of society which include nature, women, men and children. In this way, the artist simultaneously explores urban art as a form of social protest and as a way of stirring the lost dreams of youth and the urban interactions that have fallen into disuse due to globalism.
Afroivan seeks to reaffirm the ideals of pan-African cultural self-determination and ideology, portrayed in the form human silhouettes, human faces and different objects with regular and irregular lines, complemented by warm colours. The beauty of African women, landscapes and wildlife is also highlighted in the artist's creations. This artist is also inspired by the aesthetic patterns and symbols taken from capulanas and artisanal ornaments. The various murals painted by Afroivan in the city centre and in the suburbs (Maxaquene, Polana Caniço, Unidade and Chamaculo) are reflections of his concerns, experiences and fantasies.
Boa Mistura
“Sem Título” (2021) [Untitled]
Spanish Cooperation. Eduardo Mondlane Avenue
This initiative resulted from the collaboration between three Spanish artists who are part of the urban art group Boa Mistura and a collective of Mozambican women. This interactive initiative was held at the Craft, Flowers and Gastronomy Fair in Maputo as part of the activities commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Cooperation, based on the theme “A Mulher Moçambicana e a Capulana” [Mozambican Woman and the Capulana], and is a simple tribute to Mozambican women. The capulana and the various ornaments were used creatively to represent their centuries-old influence on Mozambi can culture. The warm colours and stylised geometric shapes remind us of the different patterns of the capulana and elements of local handmade jewellery. Although the prin cipal objective of this piece is to highlight female beauty, the raised fists depicted in the image also mean to allude to women’s participation in the different struggles for the country’s development. The desire (of women) to fly higher and further is illustrated through the abstract forms in the lower section of the mural. These elements remind us of the flight of birds but also, formally, resemble the pattern of typical locally handcrafted bird-shaped wooden combs.
Urban Regeneration: consists of the physical and visual transformation of a given space, generally in a poor state of conservation and disuse. This process occurs, among various forms, through an artistic intervention aimed at contributing to the visual appea rance of the environment, using murals, sculptures, installation art, and other forms of artistic expression. Downtown Maputo, particularly the “Rua de Arte” and the “Barrei ras de Maxaquene”, among other places, were recently the target of artistic intervention through the design of murals and decorative paintings. According to the artist Sebastião Coana, mastermind of the initiative “Bring Back Maputo”, this act aims to contribute to the
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enrichment of abandoned and neglected public spaces, given the contribution that these arts have had in upgrading public spaces and significantly boosting the potential of local tourism.
Generally, this kind of urban interventions are more focused on the formal and the chromatic aesthetics of the visual elements represented, which is clearly evident in some of Coana's works. The collective mural, painted by students from the Instituto Superior de Artes e Cultura, on the retaining wall of the slope along Avenida Julius Nyerere is one of the works that fall within this theme.
Sebastião Coana (2021)
“Bring Back Maputo”
Travessia da Palmeira Street and Gávea Street - (Rua de Arte).
“Bring Back Maputo” is a “social responsibility” initiative, which emerged in 2021, with the aim of promoting citizenship values and stimulating the growth of tourism in the city's downtown area (and not only), and already covers approximately 3000 square metres. The project has contributed significantly to the visual regeneration and urban landscaping of badly neglected public spaces, particularly those that have been abando ned and are in ruins. This initiative is spearheaded by the Corporação Industrial do Norte (CIN), a paint manufacturing company, in partnership with the Municipal Council of the City of Maputo, and in collaboration with the artist Sebastião Coana. More than a dozen young art aficionados also participate in and support this project.
Coana's artistic interventions focus essentially on representing the beauty and visual harmony of colours and geometric shapes, which represent - according to the artist - the multicultural and architectural richness of the city. The iconic figure of a stylish frog on the backdrop of a rainbow, which was once ruined, heralds new hope for the city’s downtown urban life cycle, especially in that socially problematic area. It is bearing in mind the issues that plague the lives of many girls who frequent the downtown area, that the artist uses combinations of warm colours to appeal for the education of girls and social harmony.
Criticism and Social Appeal: Due to its essentially informal nature, urban art is one of the means most commonly used by urban artists to express their opinions, cri ticism, and personal and collective thoughts. Considering and taking into account that, in the opinion of and paraphrasing José Guilherme de Abreu (2015:5), researcher, history professor and art critic, “urban art is not founded on any exclusive aesthetic expression, from a material or a formal perspective, and much less on any artistic current. Urban art is presented through different disciplines and possibilities which are not bound by academic reductionism”.
This is why the characteristic informality of artworks in public spaces is an advantage for artists, allowing them to freely express their ideas and bypass institutional censorship. However, the excessive control by government authorities over public spaces means that this objective is not always achieved, resulting in the removal of some artworks. Unfor tunately, this was the case of the mural by the rapper and graffiti artist, Shot B, painted on the wall along Avenida da OUA, which was removed because of its content criticising the difficult social and political situation in the country in 2011 and 2012.
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Despite its autobiographical artistic nature, the work of Barimu, considered an “outsider artist and journalist from Maxaquene” (Maputopias, 2020), is at the same time a docu ment condemning the corruption of certain leaders and other evils afflicting Mozambican society. It also has some similarities to the mural painted at FEIMA by the Spanish artist Fidel Añaños (Mister) in collaboration with Mozambican artists.
However, the messages expressed in a significant part of the public urban art in Maputo are more in the form of an appeal, generally to a specific subject/event such as the need for environmental protection, marine and water resource conservation, or the fight against the new coronavirus, rather than decorative. This is clearly evident in the pieces documen ted below:
Barimu
“Cartão-Postal do Bairro Maxaquene” [Postcard of Maxaquene neighbourhood]
Maxaquene
Barimu's public performance is presented in a unique language, emerging from the artist’s intimate ethnographic and autobiographical process. The author opts for non -figurative visual communication in his representation of objects and living beings, as is common in most of the city’s urban artworks. Above all, Barimu explores compositions of words and letters, requiring a certain analysis and in-depth examination to decode their meaning. It appears that the artist adopted cryptographic techniques and methods to protect his messages to the public, thereby challenging interested viewers to decode the meaning of his pieces and test their exploration skills to facilitate a greater unders tanding. As is illustrated in these works of his, the act of understanding sometimes requi res the viewer to interact directly with the artist, in order to make sense of some phrases and loose words that are, at first, incomprehensible. Barimu’s main form of expression is generally textual language, carefully, coldly and monochromatically written and pain ted with a brush, swinging between red, black, brown, white and green colours. He often uses non-conventional surfaces such as zinc roofing sheets, wood, plastic and includes other materials randomly collected from the streets for his art. The work of this creator reflects the instability of his emotional and psychological state, without this being used as a pretext to not acknowledge its value. According to Maputopias (2020) Barimu “is an outsider artist and an independent journalist from the Maxaquene C neighbourhood, where he owns the largest open-air gallery in the city of Maputo”.
Collaborative Mural - FEIMA
“Mudar o mundo, meu amigo Sancho, não é loucura nem é utopia, é justiça!” (2016) [To Change the World, my dear friend Sancho, is not madness nor utopia, it is justice!]
Feima - Armando Tivane Avenue
Fidel Añaños (Mister), Ukeyo, L.Sozinho, Guidione, Simone, Giwa, Lumazu, Malé, Companhia, Fred, B.Pais, S.Pizura, J.Timane, Djito, Zigy and Silvano.
These creations are the product of an artistic exchange between the renowned Spanish urban artist Fidel Añaños (Mister), the 15 Mozambican artists mentioned above. The ini tiative was sponsored by the Spanish Cooperation in Maputo through the “ACERCA” pro gramme, and its proposal was to contribute to training in order to develop the cultural
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sector. This was carried out as part of the commemorations of the 4th centenary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, one of the most important figures in Castilian literature, and it is fitting that one of the phrases painted on the mural depicting this anniversary is taken from his famous book, Don Quixote de La Mancha.
Viva Con Água - Mozambique: Afroivan, Taina, Shot B, Aemka, Lizzie, Ana Justino Maripila (2019). Feima - Maputo.
Afroivan, Manavetana, Phaira and Panda (2020) Mavalane|Afroivan, Manavetane and Dji Nafita (2020). Polana Caniço “A”.
Viva con Água (VcA) [Live with Water] is a global network of people and organisations committed to establishing access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation for all human beings worldwide. In this context, the project has collaborated with several urban artists in different regions of the world, with the aim of disseminating messages and raising awareness among populations on good practices for the rational use of water resources in general.
Maputo has been the stage for several murals produced by local guest artists, some of whom continued to produce this type of art independently. The murals created by dif ferent groups of artists express a common mindset on the need to preserve the precious natural liquid in an artistic, fun and elegant manner. Fantasy and visual humour in the figures created is one of the visual communication strategies explored by the artists, as is evidenced by the characters recreated from fish, mice and unknown comical creatures. The painted motifs also seek to raise awareness on the issue of the need for constant hand sanitation as a weapon to combat the spread of the Coronavirus and other diseases. The natural human beauty, portrayed through the face of a woman, and the biodiversity represents a communion between beings, for the advancement of global sustainability of resources.
Bruno Chichava (2020)
“Proteção da Diversidade Ambiental” [Protection of Environmental Diversity]
Rua dos Desportistas, Roberto Mugabe Square
In his habitual eclectic style, Bruno Chichava paints about different contexts and back grounds, this time as part of the commemorations of the international biodiversity and environment day. As alluded to, Chichava has graffitied about the importance of biodiversity and the environment, with his work highlighting many aspects that need addressing, namely the endangered fisheries resources, with particular emphasis on the dugong, the manta rays, sea turtles, the giant shark and other marine resour ces. The combinations of deep blues and greens intermingle, contrasting with the other colours which, in turn, represent the rich ecosystem in the ocean’s depths. His work also speaks to the protection of the mangroves against illegal destruction, and to the problem of deforestation, in general. Such is his dedication to this subject that the artist’s design creatively resembles vegetation along the promenade, as is seen in the image above. Bruno Chichava also has pieces commissioned by companies and by private individuals.
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Berna Filipe
“Covid-19 (2021)
Maputo Central Hospital
Berna Filipe’s pieces are not commonly seen in the city’s public spaces but, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she joined the artists’ global solidarity movement, and exten ded a gesture of appreciation to all Mozambican health professionals and forces of society fighting the new Coronavirus. It was within this context that the sculptor produced this piece, which can be found in the gardens outside the Emergency Room of the Maputo Central Hospital. The sculpture, in Berna’s usual style, is made up of different repurposed metallic fragments and objects. The way she combines parts from vehicles, like exhaust pipes and discs in the construction of her pieces, along with other smaller components, including metal bottles, is remarkable. Aesthetically, the sculpture challenges us to (re) imagine the evolution of a specific organism undergoing metamorphosis, alluding to the mutations of the virus. The textures of the brown, grey and black colours of some of the components, worn out over time, contrast with the warm yellowy and orangey colours popping in the composition, as if announcing measures of co-existence and resilience concomitantly with the will to fight and defeat the virus.
Between creative Fantasy and representation of social life: artistic work is not always driven by a concrete, socially and historically relevant subject. Inspiration sometimes leads the artist to create and recreate less descriptive illusions, detached from real life. The artist may also find other ways to discover his path, using fragmented depictions of different machinery parts and objects or signs of material of life, exploring settings and colours, urban objects and landscapes, as is illustrated in the “narratives” that dominate the more abstract trends, which resort to the use of simplified forms and objects as the preferred strategy for representation. Another creative tool explored by several artists is the repre sentation of dreams, which are pure “fiction”, where images and forms are manipulated to create extremely illusional compositions. This is illustrated in the pieces that follow.
Titos Mabota (2011)
“Escultura MCel” [Sculpture MCel]
TMCEL Headquarters. Avenida 25 de Setembro
Sculpture made from a modelling technique using cement and coarse sand. In this piece, Titos Mabota illustrates the importance of social communication as a vehicle for development and for closing the gap between people, goods and services, which is an essential factor in the development of communities and of the country at large. The sculpture depicts the typical stance and clothing of the informal working class, repre sented by the figure of a man wearing a straw hat on his head.
Titos Mabote (1963-2017) began his career in the arts in the 1990s. His style as an artist is unique, with his monuments made of simple woody materials, collected mostly from his surroundings, while also using metal and assorted pieces of scrap. Mabota participa ted in several important international exhibitions, including Africa Remix in 2004, and his artwork can be found in many national and international art collections.
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National School of the Visual Arts
EDM - 40 years, Building Mozambique (2017)
Maxaquene - Milagre Mabota Avenue
This extensive twenty-metre-long mural was created by more than a dozen students from the National School of Visual Arts (ENAV)and their two teachers, Moisés Sambo and Neivaldo Nhatugueia, and was commissioned as part of the commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the state-owned enterprise Electricidade de Moçambique, in collabo ration with ENAV.
The artists were tasked with presenting unique creative proposals that portrayed EDM’s accomplishments over the 40 years since its establishment. As such, the mural contains several subjects and styles, and different paintings, but which share the same sentiment, i.e., a testament to the role played by the enterprise in the country’s development pro cess, in the different social settings. The electrification of the country and the associated everyday benefits to the cultural and economic lives and social well-being of the Mozam bican populations and their communities, is one of the most widely explored subjects in this piece. One can observe, from the diversity of different aesthetic genres depicted in this mural, the abstract, surrealist and impressionist characteristics present or simply those (dis)figuring traditional popular Mozambican painting, immersed between the ima gination and the social portrait. This multiplicity of pictorial elements reflects the mul ticultural richness of the country and the social experiences of the authors themselves.
ISArC's Collective Mural
Avenida Julius Nyerere
This mural, created by teachers and students from the Instituto Superior de Artes e Cul tura (ISArC), portrays recurring themes in the national visual arts, specifically subjects relating to the populations’ experiences and problems. The visual expressions explored and presented in this piece include the glorification of childhood events and folklore through music, dance and storytelling as well as geometric symbolism. The figures of women and children peddlers depicted in this piece symbolize the bridge between informal and formal income, as well as the proximity and transition between the Xique lene market and the city’s upscale neighbourhoods, i.e., Sommerschield and Polana cimento.
DjiveMäki Studio Assistants
“As Zonas Urbanas e Conflito com o Rural” (2017) [Urban Areas and Conflict with the Rural].
The spontaneous games and experiences that mark cultural life in the city’s periphe ral neighbourhoods, as in the case of Polana Caniço, are a huge source of the material and immaterial cultural wealth of the people. Traditional games, such as jumping rope, tyre and metal bicycle rim races, as well as board games (checkers and chess, for exam ple), are some of those included in the referred-to cultural heritage. This same cultural heritage is being replaced by the interests produced by the global demands of urban areas, driven by the gentrification and the boom in real estate speculation in areas like Polana Caniço, where new luxury buildings spring up daily. This change is also visible in the dispute between man and nature for peri-urban space. The crocodiles and birds
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depicted in this piece symbolise the intersection between antagonistic and conflicting beings.
Art Nucleus Collective
“Mercado do Peixe e Mangumba” (2021) [Fish Market and Mangumba]
Painting on containers
An integrated set of outdoor paintings on 36 containers that have been transformed into restaurants, making up the new Municipal Chicken and Magumba Fish Market (a type of fish similar to sardines). The initiative stemmed from a project whose aim was to revitalise Maputo’s beachfront area, which resulted in this new market being estab lished. More than one hundred artists, including Taiga Matimele, Saranga, Shot B, Vado, Tsenane, Chonga, Ziggy, Santos Mabunda, A.M. Costa, Jamal, André Macie, Butcheca, Fiel dos Santos, Chiken, Neto, Kass Kass, Chaná de Sá, Valentim, Mahumana, Djive, Quehá, Dito, Tinga, King Novunga, Ismael, Silimo, Bruno Pais, Nhetana, Jato Abreu, Gonza, Bata, Makolwa, Covane, Rapousão, Trindade, and Bias, most of whom members of the Art Nucleus, were invited to participate and tasked with creating their art on these surfaces as a way of improving the visual appearance of the space. The paintings offer the market’s clientele an opportunity to enjoy the artworks and interact with the artists’ respective creations, diving into the different themes and imaginary expressions of every day life that are explored and depicted by the foodstuffs on sale, i.e., drinks, seafood and grilled chicken. As is to be expected, the seascape is also very evident in almost all of the pieces in this space.
Entertainment and Urban Graffiti: The history of graffiti takes us back to its origin in the 1960s in the United States of America. The evolution of graffiti is associated with entertainment and the social subversion of certain urban groups associated with the revolutionary Hip hop cultural movement, and is considered to be one of its four pillars (Cossa, 2019:29 - 33). Thus, historically, graffiti emerges in urban spaces as a symbol of resistance and social criticism. In Mozambique, and more specifically in the capital city, the circums tances are no different, and its expansion emerges as a response to identical situations.
The works of urban artists such as Shot B, Mavec, Afroivan, Bruno Chichava and Djitafina have developed in the urban context, where they are influenced primarily by rap. Djitafi na's recent works, painted in the streets and alleys of Xipamanine, are an example of this reality, clearly showing the relationship between the musical sound of rap and the rhythmic poetry of the colours and shapes portrayed.
Djinafita Xipamanine
The murals by the painter and graffiti artist Djinafita are influenced primarily by the urban national and international Hip hop culture movements, as are those by the street artists Shot B, Mavec and Bruno Chicava.
The musical resonance of rap, represented through the emblematic style of uns tructured phrases and lyrics which generally explode from the painting’s composition is one of the several technical and conceptual aspects of Djinafita's graffiti. The vibration
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of warm colours is also an important aspect. As is evident in this piece, Djinafita’s work generally portrays the faces of actual and imaginary personalities, suggestive illustra tions that appear to emerge from behind or that blend in with the visual and physical aspect of the wall or surface on which the pieces are created. The way this artist exhibits his work is not simply for it to be viewed; it also urges the spectators to engage emotio nally and physically, in order to actively participate in finalising the message expressed in his work, as is shown in the painting above which gives the illusion of human flight. Dji nafita's artistic creations also include commissioned portraits painted on T-shirts, shoes, and other articles of clothing.
Natasha Matos
Natasha da Glória Matos is a female Visual Artist, who grew up with a good inclination in analytical drawing made with materials that start from graphite pencil and charcoal dust on surfaces such as paper and canvas, she has gained a lot of interest in mural art very recently as a new way for her to express herself artistically in public spaces.
Her interest in the art world started in childhood, and her desire is to be able to trans form the history of her existence and her perception of society into symbology that she can communicate and connect with other people, through her drawings on murals. For her drawings, Natasha uses the feeling of melancholy, sadness and anguish a lot, as a way to create a sense of mystery.
Minória Máquina
Minória Máquina is a Mozambican self-taught visual artist born in 2000 with a great taste for spatial and galactic representations, connections between women and nature in drawings and paintings that contrast with charcoal portraits and vectorized charac ters, her first contact with public art in painting in murals takes place in 2017 when she is invited as a resident artist to be part of the collective of the School of Visual Arts that painted the extensive mural that celebrates 40 years of EDM (Electricidade de Moçam bique) since then she participates in several practical public art workshops such as the mosaic guided by Marcelino Manhula at the Mozambican Federation, School Unit 13 in Chamanculo and Neighborhood Unit 7. froM hiP hoP culture to urbaN art: aN oNgoiNg dialogue
While chatting to one of the urban artists approached during this preparation of this book, who works with multidisciplinary forms of artistic expression, namely Graffiti, Hip hop and Graphic Design and goes by the name Mavec (Antânasio Vasco Elias Cuna), he said:
“the artistic interventions found in the urban areas and outskirts of Maputo are acts that arise at the heart and at the intersection of urban and suburban culture, where diffe rent groups of adolescents, youth and adults seek to assert their very-often invisible joint and personal identities, dreams and frustrations” (personal message, 2022).
In the context of the city, Mavec highlights the various resounding (in)formal nuclei linked to Hip hop, that emerged within the central neighbourhood, Malhangalene, Coop, Maaxaquene and Polana Caniço, between the 1980s and 2000.
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The artist also states that “through graffiti, the Hip hop artists found a way to visually communicate in the streets and avenues, making it possible for them to expand, demo cratise, assert their ideals and concepts of identity” (Mavec, 2022). Street artists like Shot B, Afroivan, Bruno Chichava and even younger ones, most recently Djitafina, are all pro ducts of the artistic coexistence forged between music and the visual arts. In Mavec's opinion (2020), “within the periphery, Hip hop emerged as a subordinate identity, and for that reason it was so difficult to be accepted by the dominant classes until then” (personal opinion).
the PerforMatiVe diMeNsioN of urbaN art
Since urban art is not bound any material or aesthetic style, it transcends the termi nologies or conceptualisations that characterise, for example, European art movements such as cubism, fauvism and others. The characteristic informality of contemporary urban art is one of the main democratic principles of artistic freedom. However, according to curator Gabriela Vaz Pinheiro (2018), urban art can take on different forms, including commemorative sculptures/statues, urban arrangement, entertainment, pamphlets/gra ffiti, as well as critiques and poetry.
When interconnecting the different types of urban art in the dominant artwork being appraised in the city of Maputo, it becomes evident that the range of modalities includes those mentioned by the curator. Based on this line of thought, it is important to rein force the existence of the performative urban arts, since this genre of art is becoming increasingly less visible in the streets, avenues and public places of leisure. Generally speaking, urban performance arts are included within the scope of entertainment, and it is here that the city’s groups and movements, including W – Tofo, Robotizzy Shinguile Arte and others, dedicate their performance to street art, through music, dances, per formance and educational acts. This category of arts also includes informal poet-singers who generally perform wandering between the city’s community markets, particularly the People’s market.
iNterNatioNal artists iN the VitalisatioN of urbaN art
As a creative and cosmopolitan city, Maputo has hosted several international urban artists and groups. In 2016, the famous Spanish artist Fidel Añaños (Mister), organised an urban art gathering with the participation of 15 Mozambican artists, which culminated in the painting of a mural at the Maputo Crafts, Flower and Gastronomy Fair (FEIMA).
Jonathan Darby, a renowned artist of English origin, left his creative mark on the city in the form of a mural he painted along Avenida Malhangalene, during his visit to the country in 2017.
The contribution by and participation of two Zurich-based multidisciplinary artists, Taina and AemKa, who along with Mozambican artists, in 2019 painted a mural at FEIMA
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as part of the Viva com Água Moçambique project, is highlighted from among the diffe rent events that took place.
In 2021, other artists associated with the Madrid-based urban art collective Boa Mis tura left their mark on Maputo - the City of Acacias – with a remarkable mural created along the majestic Avenida Eduardo Mondlane, next to the Spanish Cooperation’s office building.
Based on the experience in the city of Maputo, many other international multidisci plinary artists, activists and volunteers are showing an increasing interest in creating art and taking part in artistic interchanges to develop urban art in Mozambique. Andy Leuenberger is one of the German artists and activists who this year (2022), worked with the Mozambican muralist Afroivan, founder of Maputo Street Art, to paint a mural. The Italian illustrator Zallicus Alice Zaniboni, who also painted some murals together with Afroivan and Kassiano, also helped in the creation of other murals in the Chamanculo neighbourhood.
farewell
Due to the importance of urban art in the life of communities, in terms of its artistic education and its potential in the process of spatial activation of neglected or aban doned spaces, the growing interest in and recognition of urban art is undeniable. Even though the number of emerging and established artists involved in this type of art, within the national panorama of visual arts, is still fairly small, the absence of women artists’ participation is noticeable. Firstly, this is a fairly recent activity and, in its current form, is based more on “artivism” rather than on an essentially commercial practice, inherent to the sale of modern and contemporary art which can be transported and exhibited at galleries and museums. Secondly, its inherently civic-appealing and, a priori, less com mercial nature, presents a challenge for those wishing to develop their artistic career in this field. This may, perhaps, be one of the reasons for the limited number of artists pursuing this field of art.
Urban art requires a different type of funding, one that is much more structured and, unfortunately, the current domestic setting is still very far from being able to meet such expectations.
However, initiatives of this type are always relevant, since they allow new audien ces to be created and attract the attention of a broader public responsible for casting the social fabric and the mechanisms to receive the arts, such as curators, collectors, sponsors and civil society. These initiatives also offer the possibility to attract new invest ments to the sector, resulting in a much-needed valorisation thereof. Thus, it may be pos sible, in a short space of time, to place the city of Maputo on the map in terms of the international urban art circuit.
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aBreu, José guilherme, (2015). “Arte Pública Como Meio de Interacção Social: Da Participação Cívica ao Envolvimento Comunitário” /Public Art as a Means of Social Interaction: From Civic Participation to Community Engagement, in Almeida, Bernardo. Rosendo, Catarina. Margarida, Alves. (eds (2015), Arte pública: lugar, contexto, partici pação/ Public art: place, context, participation. Santo Tirso City Council: Institute of Art History, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHA - FCSH/ UNL), pp. 171-174.
almeida, Bernardo. rosendo, Catarina. margarida, alves. (eds.) (2015). Public Art: Place, Context, Participation, Santo Tirso City Council: Institute of Art History, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon (IHA - FCSH/ UNL).
CampBell, Brígida (2015). Arte Para Uma Cidade Sensível/ Art for a Sensitive City. São Paulo: Radical Books.
Cossa, emílio (2019). Ritmo, Alma e Poesia: A história e as Estórias do Hip hop/ Rhythm, Soul and Poetry: History and Stories of Hip hop. Maputo: Publisher.Costa, Alda (2013). Arte em Moçambique – Entre a construção da nação e o mundo sem fronteiras: 1932 – 2004/ Art in Mozambique – Between building a nation and a world without bor ders: 1932-2004. Lisbon: Verbo.
______ . (2019). Arte e Artistas em Moçambique Diferentes Gerações e Modernida des / Art and Artists in Mozambique: different generations and variants of modernity. Maputo: Marimbique harvey, david. [2012] (2014). Cidades Rebeldes: Do Direito à Cidade à Revolução Urbana /Rebellious Cities: From Law to the City to the Urban Revolution. (Trad. Jeferson Camargo). São Paulo: Martins Fontes - Selo Martins. national statistiCs institute. (2019). General Population and Housing Census.(IV CENSO 2017). Available at: http://www.ine.gov.mz ngoenha, severino elias (2016). “A (im)possibilidade do momento moçam bicano - Notas Estéticas”/ The (im)possibility of the Mozambican moment - Aesthetic Notes”. Maputo: Alcance Editores. onwezor, okwui and oguiBe, olu. (1999). Reading the contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace. Kirkman House, London: Institute of International Visual Arts saChs, alBie (1984). Images of a Revolution. Minerva Central: Maputo Sinanhal, Tembo João (2016). Arte Pública em Moçambique – Maputo Intervenções nos espaços públicos a partir da prática artística do Mural /Public Art in MozambiqueMaputo Interventions - Murals in public spaces. Available at: https://repositorio-aberto. up.pt/handle/10216/84636 (date of last search: 11/08/2022. 15:09). viCtor, Correia. (2013). Arte Pública-Seu Significado e Função /Public ArtIts Meaning and Function. 1st edition. Lisboa: Editora Fonte da Palavra. pinheiro, gaBriela vaz (2018). Memória e Representação, Cidadania e Poder / Memory and Representation, Citizenship and Power. Available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=YfDDfM454SA
200 BiBliography
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O século XX caracteriza-se, no panorama da história contemporânea, por ter sido um marco nas grandes convulsões globais de ordem social, política, económica e artística. Neste sentido, várias realizações viradas para o espaço público e as suas implicações conexas, sobretudo no domínio artístico e revolucionário, ganharam preponderância. As intervenções artísticas em diversos espaços urbanos não institucionalizados, com destaque para os bairros suburbanos, foram e continuam sendo uma das acções de extrema importância na descentralização das artes visuais, no que se refere à sua relação com o meio institucionalizado. Partindo deste pressuposto, o presente livro propõe especialmente mapear os trilhos do progresso consecutivo da arte urbana contemporânea na cidade de Maputo.
From a perspective of contemporary history, the 20th century is considered to have been marked by great global, social, political, economic and artistic upheavals. In this sense, there has been an increased prevalence of the focus of these works that are being created in public spaces and on the related implications, particularly in artistic and revolutionary terms. Works of art created and displayed in different non-institutionalized urban spaces, particularly suburban neighbourhoods, have been and continue to be extremely important actions in the decentralization of the visual arts, in terms of their relationship with institutionalized settings. Based on this assumption, this book aims to map the path of uninterrupted progress of contemporary urban art in the city of Maputo.
-Titos Pelembe