BOIEIRO, Catarina; SCHEFER, Raquel (eds.)
Generalized Visual Resistance – Photobooks and Liberation Movements / Résistance visuelle généralisée – Livres de photographie et mouvements de libération (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, 1960-1980)

This publication brings together and revisits a set of photobooks produced between the 1960s and 1980s, in the context of anti-colonial Liberation struggles and the early years of independence in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde. The book stems from a research started in 2018, that materialized in a series of exhibitions of materials including photobooks, militant publications, magazines, posters, photographs, films and artworks: it constitutes an unprecedented visual archive of the emancipatory uses of the image as an instrument for transforming the world. At the same time, it contextualizes the precise geo-political and cultural circumstances of their production, and reconstructs the material history, motifs and forms of the transnational Liberation aesthetics of the period, extensively illustrated with excerpts from various photobooks currently out of print.

With a foreword by Miguel de Barros, this volume brings together an introductory essay by the editors, unpublished texts by researchers Drew Thompson and Lúcia Ramos Monteiro, and a reprint of the speech “The Growth of a New Culture,” given by FRELIMO in 1971. Newly commissioned interviews with photographers and filmmakers Augusta Conchiglia and Moira Forjaz allow us to complexify dominant historiographical approaches from a gendered perspective, among others. The Furtado Schefer design studio – in charge of the publication's graphic design – offers a visual essay addressing the complex genealogy of anti-colonial visual culture, in its different declinations and ramifications. [publishers’ note]

Une réflexion critique sur la mémoire et les images à travers un ensemble de livres de photographie rares réalisés dans le cadre des mouvements de libération dans les anciennes colonies portugaises en Afrique entre les années 1960 et 1980, tissant une réflexion sur l’importance de la culture visuelle dans les luttes anticoloniales et les premières années de l’indépendance, entre militantisme et expérimentation formelle étroitement liés aux luttes armées. [note de la maison d’édition]

Trilingual! English / Français / Portugues

Texts by / Textes de Miguel de Barros, Augusta Conchiglia, Moira Forjaz, Lúcia Ramos Monteiro, Drew Thompson.

Published by Atlas Projectos, 2025
Design by Atelier Furtado Schefer, Porto
Exhibition Catalogues / Politics / Media Studies / Photography / Book Culture