Campo Experimental

«Experimental Field: Ângela Ferreira, in Collaboration with Alda Costa, explores material and environmental research undertaken in the early years of Mozambique’s independence. The exhibition takes its name from an outdoor agricultural learning laboratory maintained at Eduardo Mondlane University’s campus, where university staff, researchers and students worked together to produce food, design resources, tools and structures, and train farmers and community technicians. This experimental site was coordinated by TBARN (Técnicas Básicas de Aproveitamento de Recursos Naturais), a research group formed in the early years of the socialist government to improve farmers’ production and quality of life with minimal resources. Ângela Ferreira builds on TBARN’s visual and textual remains to reveal the revolutionary ethos that made Mozambique a global centre for radical experimentation in the 1970s and early 1980s. […]

Experimental Field emerges from the artist’s ongoing dialogue with Alda Costa, a pioneer Mozambican art historian and cultural worker whose lived experience during socialism and scholarship thereafter have made her living memory of an unmatched moment in cultural history. In the exhibition, historical objects from Costa’s milieu and personal collection are displayed alongside Ferreira’s work. These objects’ design reveals the period’s placement of material conditions at the forefront of cultural production. Through this dialogue, Ferreira’s works investigate histories that simultaneously express political pragmatism and creative playfulness, being locally grounded and international in their reach.»