For the exhibition, I selected books from Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, which is just a fragment of the whole collection and research. All of these countries were leading liberation wars against Portugal between the 1960s and early 1970s. After gaining independence in 1975, civil wars broke out in Angola and Mozambique. Photobooks, magazines, and other photography based printed matter were key propaganda tools. Produced in large print runs, publications were supposed to agitate the masses. Three main perspectives feature in the installation’s publications: the local national parties, the Portuguese, and those of foreign journalists. The books, each having unique features, also share a lot in common regarding how they use photography, what stories they choose to tell, and what visual language they choose for that. Recurrent motifs show how photography is used in the photobook form to create a shared vision of how events unfolded.
All the books on display are shown until February 2019 on the special Fotodok page of the website www.africainthephotobook.com.
All installation shots © Studio Hans Wilschut
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