I started photographing Aziza Amade and her family around September 2005. I was spending time at Ilha de Moçambique on my way from Dar Es Salaam to Maputo. We started a conversation while she was washing clothes at the veranda in front of her house. She showed me around the Clube Desportivo where she was living with her children and extended family, although I understood only later the who's who of mutual relationships from those staying at her house. I returned to Ilha for "Another Day of Life" in 2006, once again at the end of 2008, and for two very short stays during the Spring and Summer of 2009.
February 2010: I'm back in London from a three months stay in Mozambique working on my project Sleepwalking Land. Initially, my aim was to follow a handful of families inside their homes, the way they live, sleep and work, and show the interiors of a the crumbling colonial architecture at Ilha de Moçambique as an equally important part of my photographs. This was my goal as well during my previous trips in 2008 and 2009 and hopefully this shines through in my older work. However, Africa being Africa, nothing ever goes as planned. I partly moved away from this basic documentary concept towards a more playful idea based on an imaginary story with Aziza's house as the main location setting. So most of the photographs on the main site can be divided in two categories:
1. A first series concentrating on the daily life of Mozambican families, the interiors of their house and their way of living, categorised under the label "Vamos para Casa".
2. A second series, mainly at Aziza's house, broader, more intimate, more personal and less documentary in scope called "Clube Desportivo".
There is some great photographic documentary work in Mozambique being done already. However, most of it is almost exclusively aimed to show the social problems of a developing country among the poorest in the world. I wanted to use a broader and more intimate approach showing my experience living among Aziza's friends and family during my three month's stay.
With thanks to Aziza Amade and Atija Juma.
Through my background in (hand)drawn animation and graphic design, photography has always been a tool used to collect documentation for a different and larger result, often printed graphics, collages or animated movies. Even during "Another Day of Life", my aim circled more around the idea of participatory photography, the personal story of my photographers and their disposable cameras, and not necessarily around the artistic or technical quality of the photographs I was hoping to acquire.
This has changed substantially over the last few years and I'm moving more and more towards "photography based" personal work in it's own right, with Lusophone Africa as my main source of inspiration. More background about my three month's stay in Mozambique can be found at my blog.
Please contact me at gert.van.dermeersch@gmail.com for more information.
cellphone:
+44 7880 556501 (UK)
+32 494731170 (Belgium)
+258 822555147 (Mozambique)