De Passagem

Curators: Rui Pinheiro & Miguel Refresco

De Passagem — Moçambique 1970–1973

“Mário Martins boarded for Mozambique in 1970. He was 22 years old and he was joining a military commission as a special operations ensign. Over the next 27 months, he took hundreds of photographs, set up an amateur laboratory, processed and printed countless black and white and colour films. Part of this photographic collection was damaged on a boat trip between Niassa and Tete, but what survived the precarious life in the bush travelled with its author to Portugal in March 1973. His photographic collection is exceptional in many ways. This is not a soldier taking photographs (or let yourself be photographed in visual memories), but a photographer scrutinising his temporary military condition and the new territory in which he finds himself. The personal and technical care put into these compositions reveals the second remarkable aspect of the collection: visual resistance to the regime and colonialism. Thirdly and finally, this collection is the result of years of revisiting and reflection. Fifty years after boarding the Niassa this is a visual essay on the experience of the Colonial War and it invites us to discover and explore the trail of a passage through Mozambique that remains alive in these images”.

— Maria José Lobo Antunes, anthropologist and researcher

The Cave Photography — Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis
R. de Dom Manuel II 44, 4050-342 Porto

Opening Hours:

Tuesday – Sunday
10:00–18:00

Monday
Closed