Maputo Fast Forward 2017 starts today

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Maputo Fast Forward 2017 starts today

4:34 CAT | 15 Nov 2017

MMF (Courtesy photo)

The 2nd edition of MAPUTO FAST FORWARD (MFF) will take place from today, Wednesday, 15th of November to the 16th of December 2017.

The MFF 2017 program will include an international conference, several exhibitions, workshops and debates.

Its main objective is to promote Maputo as a Creative City, helping Mozambican creators and innovators across all fields of activity (arts, culture, design, technology, etc.) to present their projects, engage in fruitful debates and develop collaborations in order to establish an ecosystem that will allow them to expand their creative skills and to participate in the “global conversation” that is taking place within the “creative industries” sector.

Launched in 2016, the MFF is a platform engaged in promoting creativity and innovation and stimulating the development of trans-disciplinary networks (www.maputofastforward.com)

Highlights of the MFF 2017

International Conference

Digital lifestyes – Culture & Technology in the 21st Century

The purpose of the conference is to debate the many intertwined relations between culture and technology in our contemporary societies. Invited international Keynote Speakers include:

– Jepchumba (Kenya) – digital artist and curator of the African Digital Arts website;

– Ngendo Mukii (Kenya) – an award-winning filmmaker (“This Migrant Business”; “Yellow Fever”) and photographer (“The Travelogues Series”; “Untitled Labour”);

– Henri Vergon (South Africa) – Curator and founder of the AFRONOVA Gallery in Johannesburg;

– António Pinto Ribeiro (Portugal) – Curator, Cultural Programmer and Researcher;

– Luis Texixeira (Portugal) – Director of the Digital Arts Centre at Universidade Católica de Portugal;

Mozambican participants include:

António Sopa (Cultural Historian);

João Roxo (Designer and founding member of ANIMA – Estúdio Criativo);

Tiao Borges Coelho (founder of UX Technologies);

Tavares Cebola (Cultural Programmer and Editor);

Andrea Moreira (Director of the Research Centre of the 1834 Gallery founded by renowned Mozambican artist Gonçalo Mabunda).

The conference will take place on the 16th and 17th of November at the Fundação Fernando Leite Couto

Exhibitions

‘Bits of Maputo / Entre Acácias’ – Ricardo Pinto Jorge

Ricardo Pinto Jorge started doing graffiti and street art at very young age. He then got interested in graphic design, painting and photography. His mixed-media works show all these influences. His first major solo exhibition – “Heands Up” – at the Centro Cultural Franco-Moçambicano, in Maputo, reflected a refreshing and provocative visual style that aroused immediate international interest in his artistic proposition. The exhibition was presented, in late 2016, at the Erdmann Contemporary Gallery in Cape Town.

‘Bits of Maputo’ is an audiovisual project curated by João Roxo. It includes 20 photomontages, 10 video art pieces and 10 songs tailored by Nandele Maguni and Ailton “TRKZ” Matavela.

‘Bits of Maputo / Entre Acácias’ opens on the 15th of November at 6 p.m. at the Centro Cultural Brasil-Moçambique .

(Des) Construções / (De) Construções: Collective exhibition Maísa Chaves, Hugo Mendes, Hélio Januário Pene, Chonga and Nemésio Zuber

Curated by Tavares Cebola, João Roxo and Geraldine Darpoux

Maputo is boiling with creativity. Today, young designers, illustrators, architects, photographers and audio makers explore the use of digital tools in their creative process, allowing them to innovate and redefine boundaries.

Here, the urban grid and its dynamics feed their new creations. Articulated throughout a series of brainstorming sessions and intuitive cognitive exchanges, their creative process metaphors a path, traced within the city. These artists and their pieces become interconnected, allowing them to trace new narratives and explore new routes.

Both concealing and revealing, these expressions oscillate between the visible and the invisible, the objective and the unpredictable.

This exhibition intends to reflect on different aspects of Maputo, from formal influences to more intangible meanings, and give space to new forms and expressions within the local art scene, projecting it towards the future. It is about participating in making the history of things to come.

This exhibition will open on the 23th November at 6pm at 16Neto Gallery

Debates Interferences

Curated by ANIMA – Estúdio Criativo

The debates will take place at ANIMA – Estúdio Criativo headquarters

Interference disturbs. It alters, bothers and destroys. It induces recreation and reinvention.

Often considered intrusive action, they simultaneously reveal exceptions to the rule, and represent in themselves a window to unexpected universes and unpredictable results.

We live in societies characterised by calcified patterns. In contrast, the value of the intangible proves itself increasingly relevant and in this sense, creativity gives us the opportunity to question the expected, the assumed.

This experimental debate format aims to question conventional formats and revisit pre-established formulas, through a dynamic and interactive dialogue. It also proposes to recognise the value of intuition and to accentuate the loudness, relevance and legitimacy of the Voice, individual or collective.

Artists, Poets, Economists, Engineers and other Thinkers are invited to participate in this open, transparent, disruptive and absolutely unregulated dialogue. The concept “interference” is transversal to all the sessions. Beginning there, we will explore the following sub-topics, all of them interrelated:

22 November: Replication. Appropriation. Assimilation.

Guests: Diana Manhiça, Filipe Branquinho, Felix Mula

External influences are sometimes faced with negative connotations. Nowadays, as consequence of the increasing mobility and interaction between geographic poles, how should we face the bleak reality of the (r)evolution of the concept of local identity?

29 November:The Persistence of Informality

Guests: Mauro Pinto, Ana Lúcia Cruz, Wacy Zacarias

Instituted power tends towards creating rules and laws that aim to anticipate every situation. However, we are surrounded by evidence that shows immeasurable creative wealth in informal, unregulated processes. Acts and Effects of the domain of the unpredictable, of intuition and necessity. How can we strike a balance between the Formal and the Informal?

6 December: Resistance or Involvement

Guests: António Cabrita, Miguel Prista, Carlos Serra, Quito Tembe, Ruth Castel-Branco

History tells stories of resistance movements, but also of evolution and change through involvement. Which standpoint should we take in the face of discontent? In this world of balance, what is the importance of irreverence and disruptive actions – acts of sabotage – as opposed to the acceptance of the current state of things? Does creative energy need revolution or continuity?

Workshop

Crowdfunding of cultural projects

Coordinator: Luis Teixeira

Director of the Digital Arts Centre at Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Coordinator of the Master in Creative Industries Management at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa

Obtaining funds to develop cultural projects is increasingly harder due to the changes that have been implemented in recent years in public cultural policies. This has led to intense competition for private resources who are not always available for more independent and unconventional projects. This workshop aims at providing artists and institutions with the tools and expertise necessary to engage in crowdfunding campaigns in order to obtain financial support for their projects.

The workshop will take place on the 17th of November (2.30pm/6.30pm) at 16Neto Gallery
________________________________________________________________________________

The MFF is an initiative of QIDEIA | COMUNICAÇÃO and GRH

Partners of MFF 2017: Fundação Fernando Leite Couto, Centro Cultural Brasil-Moçambique, ANIMA – Estúdio Criativo, 16 Neto Gallery, DEAL Gallery, 1834 Gallery, ICEMA, Machamba Criativa Gallery and UX – Information Technologies

Official Sponsors: Barclays Bank Mozambique | Swiss Cooperation

Source: Maputo Fast Forward Press Release