Mobilarte

<p dir="ltr">Maputo, formerly known as Lourenço Marques, is the capital and largest city of Mozambique. Named after the river Maputo, the city is a large port on the Indian Ocean, also known as the City of Acacias, because most of its large avenues and streets are lined with acacia trees. Driving or walking through the city, its rich and mixed history is immediately revealed by some prominent street names: Avenida Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenine, Friedrich Engels, Mao Tse Tung and Kim Il Sung remind us of Mozambique’s socialist past and the one-party state based on Marxist principles it became after independence in 1975. An important street in Maputo is Avenida 24 de Julio referring to Mozambique’s independence day and the beginning of Samora Machel’s reign as the country’s first president. Machel’s time in power (1977 until his assassination in 1986) marks the socialist period of Mozambique and the beginning of a long and violent civil war between the opposition forces of the anti-Communist RENAMO rebel militias and the Marxist FRELIMO regime of Samora Machel that lasted until 1992. Hence the city also has numerous street-names referring to the war, it’s heroes and victims. Many of these streets line the route I took through the city in a tuk-tuk (a three-wheeled motorized vehicle used as a taxi), freely zigzagging through central and south Maputo ending with a long drive along the Avenida da Marginal, a boulevard on the verge of the Indian Ocean. I filmed the ride on an iPad and made the video Mobilarte (12 minutes, 2014), a short travelogue that has the characteristics of both a mobilementary and a video poem.</p>