LAMBDA – the Mozambican Association for the Defense of Sexual Minorities, one of the largest organizations fighting for the protection and rights of queer people in Mozambique, has highlighted the main issues the community faces. Most notably, these are societal stigma and hindered access to healthcare, education, and employment. LAMBDA diretor Roberto Paulo points out how unsettling this finding is, considering that every human being should have the right to choose how they want to live without fear of social exclusion.
As psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall wrote: “every human being has the right to belong to both sexes, nurturing the fantasy of sexually possessing and simultaneously identifying with men and women.” To guarantee this equality we need to create public policies that aim to combat discrimination of all kinds, increase the participation of minorities in political processes around access to education and employment, and correct all forms of inequality, prejudice based on origin, race, sex, color, age, and any other form of discrimination. This is the perspective that the queer artists brought to Sem Sombras.
Sem Sombras was the winner of an international call launched by apexart in 2022/2023. The exhibition opened at the Sabura Cultural Center, street José Mateus #185, on February 25 and could be visited until March 25, 2023.
Lorna Zita is a cultural manager and writer based in Mozambique. She was a student in C&’s mentoring program in 2022.
Translation: Sara Hanaburgh