Maputo Fast Forward returns to downtown Maputo for its 9th edition, transforming, for ten days, a building not yet operational for public use into a meeting place for art, technology, critical thinking and innovation. From 23 October to 1 November 2026, JFS Tower, on Rua do Bagamoyo, will serve as the central venue for the festival’s programme, bringing together artists, creatives, academics, researchers and innovators from Mozambique and abroad.

Under the theme “Artificial Realities: The Infinite Mirror”, the festival seeks to question the impacts, limits and possibilities of these transformations and the ways in which they are reshaping the relationship between technology, society and creative practice.

With 14 floors and a strategic location in the heart of the city, JFS Tower will host exhibitions, installations and different moments of the festival programme, bringing art, architecture, technology and other contemporary forms of creative expression into dialogue. The building thus becomes part of the festival experience — a temporary laboratory where different languages and perspectives on the future can meet.

The choice of downtown Maputo adds another dimension to the experience. With views over Maputo Bay and the Maputo-Katembe Bridge, the building establishes a direct relationship with a city in transformation and an urban landscape that also reflects different ideas of the future. Over the ten days of the festival, the architecture of JFS Tower and the city itself become part of a programme designed to bring audiences closer to its protagonists and foster new forms of dialogue and networking.