Africa, either a continent of catastrophes or a blank spot in the consciousness of Western media, harbors a rich culture of contemporary photography beyond civil wars, hunger and poverty. In Mozambique, often only perceived as a “failed state”, young photographers have created a scene whose work impresses with its high level of aesthetics, content and form. Most of them are students and later employees of Ricardo Rangel, who died in 2009 and became famous for his socially critical reports. 'Iluminando Vidas' shows the spectrum of Mozambican photography and presents photographs of everyday life in the post-colonial country: soldiers and fishermen, women and children, prostitutes and disabled people, scars left by the civil war. Texts on the history of photojournalism, a homage to Ricardo Rangel, statements from the photographers and biographical information complement the generous image section. The book was published on the occasion of the traveling exhibition organized by the editors, which was shown in the photo forum of the Center PasquArt in Biel, the Centro Portugues de la Fotografia in Porto, the National Art Gallery of Namibia in Windhoek and the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia in Maputo.

«‹Iluminando Vidas›  documents the work of Ricardo Rangel and his students. He has been photographing and working as an editor for various newspapers since the 1940s and is considered one of the fathers of independent photography in Africa. For him, art cannot be separated from documents, nor the political from the private.” Southgerman newspaper