In his studio practice, Luís MS Santos follows a sculptural process of transforming social chaos into symbolic objects. Working across a range of materials, including ceramic, wood, steel and paper, Santos has created a new body of work for his first solo exhibition in South Africa, menino, não fala política. Translated from Portuguese as ‘kid, don’t talk politics’, the phrase was taken from a well-known song by Waldemar Bastos and Dulce Pontes (1999) called “Velha Xica”. The instructive is used ironically by the artist to represent the Mozambican political landscape, and the civil unrest provoked by it.

 

Understanding the historical context of Mozambique is integral to the artist’s practice. Mozambique had achieved independence from Portugal in 1975, after a 10 year long struggle led by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), who were later opposed by the then armed movement Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO). The resulting Civil War (1977-1992) was due to local strife as well as the polarising effects of global Cold War politics, ending with the devastating loss of over 1 million lives. With the signing of the General Peace Agreements (1992), a political system of democracy was established, with executive and legislative power chosen by popular vote. Santos was born in 1993, one year later. 

 

Although his country was now to be independent, without war, and already a democracy, Mozambique nonetheless lived through small and large upheavals between electoral processes since its first multiparty elections in 1994, seeking to ground popular power or “the power of the people,” – a famous expression by Samora Machel, the president who proclaimed national independence, and later revived and widely spread by the rapper Azagaia: “the people are in power.”

 

Analysing in reverse chronological order, from back to front, it becomes clear that this was, after all, a democratic experience that emerged from conflict, just like the Nation itself. Violence, protest, prohibition, and silence are all part of the umbilical cord of which Mozambique still struggles to free itself, seeking to achieve the many freedoms still lacking and the utopia of a Nation that might truly exist, fulfilling the prophecy of the national hero poet José Craveirinha:

 

“Eu!

Homem qualquer

cidadão de uma nação que

ainda não existe.  ((CRAVEIRINHA, in Xigubo, 1999)”

 

I!
Any man,
Citizen of a nation that
Does not yet exist.
(CRAVEIRINHA, in Xigubo, 1999)

 

We are faced with an artist who knows a wounded, traumatised country, battered by a war, and that introduced a democratic game made of mutual distrust, with constant threats of returning to instability and political-military tensions. This was the case after the general elections of 2009 and 2014, for example, leading the belligerent parties (FRELIMO and RENAMO) to “negotiations” for a “lasting peace,” after which speeches would turn toward national reconciliation.

 

The most recent general elections, of 2024, opened a previously unseen chapter: post-electoral tension that did not slide into war or any type of armed incursion. But strangely, the streets remained occupied in the urban space, especially in the capital, Maputo, with popular demonstrations that still leave marks. In the streets, all kinds of voices were heard, going beyond the electoral act itself. These were mixed opinions from an older generation, disillusioned with the idea of “development” that is slow to arrive, and a new generation growing up without understanding the true project of the Nation.

 

This overview is the environment in which the artist lives and creates. In Santos’s understanding of art and its purpose, his work cannot be an exercise detached from the social aggregate. His solo exhibition, menino, não fala política presents works organized into four elements: glazed ceramic feet, finger and toe sculptures, hand-made wooden stools, rusted iron panels with wires, and paper. These elements are continuations of a set of symbols developed by the artist over the course of the last few years. 

 

The central work in the exhibition, demonstration (2025), is a large-scale installation consisting of 51 glazed ceramic feet, made from riverclay of the Maputo province. All 51 sculptures are left feet, modelled to give the impression of movement. The quantity refers to Article 51 of the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique (CRM): “All citizens have the right to freedom of assembly and demonstration under the law.”

 

This connotation of left-sidedness – without distinction of sex – indicates popular movements inspired by leftist ideals, the idea of people’s power or the people in power. In some sculptures, the soles are revealed, and unglazed as they are, communicate a sense of prone vulnerability.

 

In works such as Seat of power: Fear (2025), a hand-carved wooden stool balances precariously on four ceramic big toes, invoking the act of walking silently, on tiptoe - kid, don’t talk politics. One must march without being heard. Or act like lambe-botas – “bootlickers” – flatterers who say that the king looks handsome in suit and tie while, actually, he walks naked.

 

The symbolic toes, as well as the reminder that protesting is a right enshrined in the country's Constitution, are doors to understanding the social complexity that surrounds the artist, serving as a preamble to what we are led to observe beyond artistic beauty. The constant silencing, the amputations of uncomfortable and noisy voices, mostly of those without name, without direction, or glimpse of a better future, are a reality that robs the artist of peace – he cannot speak of love, kisses, and flowers when bodies fragment or sweat on hot asphalt, barefoot, as they try to improve their place.

 

In another work, Seat of power: Democracy (2025), a carved stool with a skirt of terracotta fingers, stained black, speaks to the practice of electoral voting ink, which in Mozambique is painted past the second knuckle. They represent the voices, bodies, that exercised their right to vote (and therefore also have the right to point the accusing finger at those who owe them service, as the pointing fingers in Seat of power: Blame, suggest).

 

The wood used to make all the stools in the exhibition was taken from a single Natal mahogany (Trichilia Emetica, or Mafurreira in Portuguese), a tree that is part of life for many Mozambican families, found in yards, streets, the countryside, and cities. The carved stools could be read physically as a platform, a stage, or metaphorically as a display of superiority and condition of being above all others; from where one speaks to the masses or simply where all are trampled and ignored, because those above cannot be reached by those below. There, among the stool supports, are the bare feet holding the weight of power. Other feet try to bring it down. This is also the fate of those who rise.

 

The rusted steel panels, while abstract, hint at the act of counting – both through the 3-dimensional x’s formed by the folded steel, as well as the titles. Statistics say, 46…, Statistics say, 65…, referring to the number of elements included on the artwork, and suggesting a headline left up to the viewer’s imagination to complete. 

 

A set of 100 flyers, printed using a carved stool as a substrate, shows a bare foot kicking down a chair, and is titled Seat of power: Propaganda (2025). 

 

Beyond the recent history of Mozambique, Santos reflects through his work also on the global state of affairs: deliberate chaos, with a certain order, controlled by some and completely uncontrolled for others; volatility and metamorphoses that seem to meet everyone in the inaction of technological extractivist entertainment. As referred to by Moroccan writer Laila Lalami: “Techno-capitalism has infiltrated our lives to such an extent that our only real break from it comes when we sleep.” And against this entire current, the weakest – vulnerable and disadvantaged populations – have only their bodies and misery to offer to the bullets.

 

For Santos, the very act of making art becomes an act of nonconformity in the Information Age, where humans and machines compete for protagonism on a planet in turmoil – political crisis, ecological and climate crisis, the redefinition of identity as a process of decolonization, and the ever-present issue of freedoms and human rights.

 

Adapted from, The Order of Things According to Luís MS Santos, 2025, by Eduardo Quive.