Bits of Maputo: AudioVisual Project on the Urban Landscapes of Mozambique

Ricardo Pinto Jorge is a Mozambican airline pilot and visual artist. A few months ago I was fortunate to visit Maputo, Mozambique for the very first time. I attended the exhibition opening, Bits of Maputo, showcasing the work of Ricardo Pinto Jorge.

“Bits Of Maputo” is an audiovisual project, curated by João Roxo. It is comprised of 30 Photomontages, an immersive Video Installation, A Sound Track Compilation By some of Maputo’s Finest Musicians and a catalogue which features a wide ar\ray of texts, written by a diverse set of people who share their perspective and experiences in the City of Maputo. This project was created with an intention to spark a dialogue about space awareness and how each citizen perceives the space (the city) in which they are enveloped and how they interact with it.

“From my first conscious encounter with this city, I have always had an inquisitive attitude towards it. Other than my grandmother’s hand held walk around the block to the market or church in COOP, I vividly remember when I first started exploring Maputo, as the designated backseat passenger of my parents’ “Ford Laser”. I loved laying down in the back of the car facing up, and permitted by the windows (which were my screens), I watched the buildings of the city go by, 1 at a time or a whole neighborhood’s worth of them at once, accompanied by Acacia, Pine and Palm trees in my new found screen. A screen through which I found a new game, the game? Mapping myself through the city by identifying the limited information I obtained through the Laser’s windows.

After gaining a passion for video and photography, I came to realize an unconscious attempt to relive my childhood experience, of looking at the tops of these quasi-brutalist yet colorfully contrasted buildings, identifying them and in the process locating myself within this dazzling space (Maputo). Bits of Maputo is my attempt at share that feeling I had as a child and challenging new perspectives of the city in order to raise more appreciation for it.”