Mozambican painter Mankeu V. Mahumana and the GDR: artists' friendships and cultural politics (part 1)

Text and Video by Lea Marie Nienhoff
Research collaboration and translation: Ambre Elsa Alfredo

The practice of a global socialist "friendship between peoples" and "international solidarity" was to be exemplified by artists in particular. At the same time, however, the cultural exchange agreed upon between the countries constituted a tightly controlled instrument of GDR foreign policy. My research explored the question of how the protagonists of the cultural exchange between the People's Republic of Mozambique and the GDR defined it for themselves, and what personal goals they associated with it. In the subjective perception of the individual protagonists, the unplanned events and private encounters, a kind of lived political friendship becomes visible that was not predefined by cultural work plans.

Part 1: In 1983, the Mozambican painter Mankeu Valente Mahumana (born 1934) was appointed a member of the Akademie der Künste Ost (Academy of Arts of East Berlin). The painter became a bridge builder between the countries and an ambassador for Mozambican culture in the GDR like no other. At the age of 87, Mankeu V. Mahumana passed away in Maputo in September 2021. The film remembers the artist himself and documents how he dedicated part of his works to building friendship and solidarity between the two countries. 

With archival documents from the private archive of Harald Heinke, the Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv), and the archive of the Academy of Arts.

The research for this film was made possible by the SNF research project "Decolonizing Socialism: Entangled Internationalism. An Intersectional Study of Cold War Projects from East Germany in Cinema and Cybernetics with Relevance for the 21st Century" (HEAD Genève) www.entangledinternationalism.org

A short bio of Lea Marie Nienhoff can be found via the page "contributors".

Ambre Elsa Alfredo is a PhD student in Urban Studies at the University of Basel and part of the project Precarious Urbanisms in Coastal Africa (PRECURBICA). Previously, Ambre worked in the development sector as well as in the field of architecture and urban planning. Having spent most of her life in Mozambique, she joined the video project to bring a part of Mozambique's history to the public that is largely silenced.