Visual arts, violence and intertwined stories: production and circulation of works and artists between Mozambique and South Africa (1980-1999)

• Grant number: 23/15403-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Laura Moutinho da Silva
• Grantee: Lia Dias Laranjeira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/05923-9 - From the heart of wars to the poetics of plasticity: creation and engagement in artistic thinking in African contexts from the 1980s till nowadays, AP.TEM

Abstract

This project focuses on the trajectory and training of visual artists in Mozambique during the period of the country's civil war until the first years of post-apartheid (1980-1999), focusing on languages, themes and approaches, as well as the circulation of these artists and their works in South Africa.The time frame of the research covers the death of Samora Machel, the crisis of the socialist regime, the end of apartheid in South Africa, as well as a greater circulation of works and artists from Mozambique in the neighboring country. The study also focuses on a period of effervescence of initiatives for the promotion and appreciation of culture and the arts by the Mozambican State, concomitant with the intensification of the civil war. The investigation intends to establish a dialogue with issues related to the mobility of artists and works, the crossing of violence in aesthetics, and political and cultural exchanges and cooperation between Mozambique and South Africa. The research will be developed in archives and collections of museological institutions of the two countries, focusing on the National Museum of Art in the city of Maputo (Mozambique); at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town (South Africa); and at the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg (South Africa); and in the archive of the National School of Visual Arts, located in Maputo. The research will also be based in interviews with artists, on documents and reports collected in archives in Mozambique, and contacts established during and after a doctoral research, which had as its theme the production of makonde art in the context of the war for independence in Mozambique and the political movements based in present-day Tanzania. In the study proposed here, the perspective of violence in dialogue with artistic production in the context of war and cross-border mobility is part in the 1980s and 1990s and focuses on the southern border of Mozambique.