Jardim Tunduru in Lourenco Marques

Tunduru Park in Lourenco Marques. (From 1960s-70s.) Ricardo Rangel's camera lens captured the social and racial relations of daily life in colonial Mozambique. He drew similarities between blacks and whites and Indians with respect to their harsh living conditions. He also tried to emphasize the social oppressions of colonialism that all populations faced. One way was through irony. Here in this frame, the stark, unjust, and unequal relations of Portuguese colonialism emerge. The viewer cannot help but think in black-and-white terms, just like the films Rangel used. But in traditional Rangel style, he humanized the pictured. In the background amid the lush and fertile trees and winding park paths were tennis courts where city residents played singles and doubles at leisure and for competition. Beyond the foreground, a young, white, and unidentified couple went for a romantic walk down the park's paths. Lastly standing in the foreground were a group of children who sold groundnuts in Portuguese referred to as "amendoim." These children stood and sat barefooted and in rangy clothes. Rangel's camera lens interlocked with the standing figure, a young boy posed against the gates smiling. The child, also a theme that runs throughout this archive, appeared dressed to play tennis in shorts and a sweater hung across his shoulders. The lens yet again brought the viewer closer to the racial segregation that was a reality during colonialism, here children sell nuts while their white counterparts played tennis. Also, it could be said that this was one of Rangel's more spontaneous scenes, where he was waiting for the right moment amid the constant human movement. Perhaps he was entering the garden to cover the tennis competition for a newspaper or walking by on his way to another assignment.