“Patria Amada” it means “Loved Fatherland” in Portuguese, and it is the title of the national anthem of Mozambique. The project is composed of street photography captured during a road trip from the South to the North of Mozambique.
I was interested in approaching street photography as a form of examining the people and as a form of connecting with home.
Taking inspiration from painters like Jean Millet, who would paint everyday people with the same prestige and care one would see in an oil painting of a religious figure or some historical event.
The treatment of the images and editing process is directly inspired by this idea.
It is in this approach that I think the style and painterly feel of the photographic work meets its content. It positions farmers, workers, vendors, men and women and fundamentally everyday scenes as worthy subjects and reveals the beauty in the ordinary.
It also became clear to me that the work became increasingly more about family and the different roles age and gender play in people's lives while hinting at their social and economic positions. In many ways it reminded me of family photographs, like a family album made of friendly faces of strangers.
I think the body of work describes Mozambique by its people, by capturing their essence not through portraiture but rather their relation to their surrounding and thus the land.
