To see things in black and white is defined as having a stark view of what is right and wrong, good and bad. In photographer Moira Forjaz’s book – Moira Forjaz: Mozambique 1975/1985, her images are in black and white, their composition is simple, but they portray a complex story of the joys of freedom, the wrongs of the colonial legacy, the good in building a new nation and the bad in its fragility.
Born in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Forjaz’s association with Mozambique began in 1961, when as a 19-year old she travelled to Lourenço Marques (Maputo) to visit friends.
A subsequent trip included a visit to the Xipamanini township, where she was challenged by the “very difficult task of photographing dark-skinned people in very bright, contrasting light”.
She “developed an affinity with the very special people of Mozambique and their struggle to put an end to colonial life”.
By 1975, when Mozambique achieved independence, Forjaz was married to architect José Forjaz and was the mother of a young son. The family had been in the country for a year after living abroad and in Swaziland.
In the run-up to independence, the Forjazes were invited to Tanzania to meet Samora Machel, president of the Mozambique liberation front, Frelimo. He would become Mozambique’s president, but Forjaz says it was at that meeting that their family’s future with the country was sealed.
For years she travelled through Mozambique as part of its Ministry of Information and Institute of Cinema, documenting its people, places and political transition on film and in photographs. From Mozambique Island’s Stone Town to political rallies, state visits, Samora and Graça Machel, ordinary people, artists and activists, her lens captured them all.
Then in 1982 her life changed drastically, with the assassination of South African anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, her friend of 20 years. First was killed in Maputo by a letter bomb sent by agents of the South African government. The two had lunch together a few hours earlier. Forjaz took her last photograph of First.
In Forjaz’s book, First’s daughter Gillian Slovo refers to the photograph and the close relationship between the two women. Describing her mother as acerbic, she writes: “But I also knew that Ruth had an enormous capacity for friendship, especially with women she could really talk to. Moira was one such friend.”
Forjaz left Mozambique in 1986, her life having fallen apart after her friend’s death. Three months later Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash orchestrated by the South African government. She did not return to the country until 1990, and then only to collect her negatives and other personal things. When Forjaz returned in 1998 to visit her son, it was 12 years after Machel’s death and she said the country would never be the same for her.
In this book, compiled in memory of Samora Machel and Ruth First, she takes us back to the Mozambique of her memories, in black and white.
It is a beautiful tribute to one woman’s romance with a country and its people that started more than 50 years ago.