Untitled futures from history’s edge by José Cabral
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8041156 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Drew Thompson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 70-83 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Visual Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1472-586X • E-ISSN: 1472-5878 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1472586x.2018.1426245 |
| OpenAlex | W2789516255 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
The liberation movement Frelimo assumed control of Mozambique from Portugal in 1975. Frelimo brought to power its own photographs, and after 1975, it faced having to date and caption this image of independence. Frelimo also had grand image-making ambitions. In order to achieve these visions, Frelimo required the assistance of practitioners, like José Cabral, whose careers as photographers preceded but were not a creation of independence. In the case of Cabral, he first worked as a film technician before transferring to press photography. Following his dismissal from the press, he worked as a photography instructor. Cabral’s own aesthetic understandings of photography complicated his professional trajectory. He elected to photograph subjects the public considered taboo. Mozambique’s press apparatus regularly deemed his pictures unpublishable. Despite these responses, he continued to photograph. Ultimately, Cabral produced an image of a future that Frelimo silenced and left untitled through the more recognised practice of press photography. In this period, many of his photographed subjects were not in a position either to picture themselves or to view their daily lives through photographs. This article considers the ways in which Mozambique’s history required recasting and reworking after independence. I locate the life and work of Cabral at the edge of Frelimo’s nationalist image-making project, and I consider the terms and conditions under which his photographs came into and escaped the public’s view. In so doing, I seek to understand the aesthetic formulations of history that Cabral cultivated while working through the strictures Frelimo imposed on photography
Art · Independence (probability theory · Nationalism · Order (exchange · Photography · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Shadow (psychology · Sociology · Vision · Visual arts · African history and culture studies · History · Law · Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
|---|