Festival 2026 – ARTIFICIAL REALITIES: THE INFINITE MIRROR

International Conference

Introduction

“The digitalisation of the world in which we live is advancing inexorably. It subjects our perception, our relationship with the world and our life in common to a radical transformation.”

— Byung-Chul Han

“Today, computational and algorithmic logic conditions how we perceive the world. (…) It is therefore not excessive to consider that, between the human and the technological, a redistribution of powers is underway, in the sense that technologies are increasingly claiming for themselves an independent teleonomic destiny.”

— Achille Mbembe

We live in a time when technology has ceased to be merely a set of tools and has become an environment that structures our lives. As Yuval Noah Harari observes, artificial intelligence is not simply a tool, but an agent capable of making decisions that may escape human control. Achille Mbembe, meanwhile, reflects on the emergence of a computational-digital civilisation in which technology and space increasingly merge, making it harder to distinguish between the artificial, the synthetic and the living.

Algorithms, digital platforms and artificial intelligence systems now shape the economy, politics, work, culture, our bodies, social relations and our relationship with the planet. These technologies hold significant transformative potential: they can contribute to more accurate healthcare and diagnosis, inclusive and adaptive education, scientific research, sustainable agriculture, economic innovation and more effective management of resources and environmental risks.

Yet these benefits are neither automatic nor neutral. They depend on who designs, controls and uses these technologies, as well as on who benefits from them and who is excluded. Without ethical and inclusive frameworks, technology can reproduce and deepen existing inequalities, create new forms of exclusion and exploitation, and intensify the ecological impacts of the infrastructures that sustain the digital age.

At the same time, digital technologies can be used to surveil, classify and influence behaviour through data collection, algorithmic personalisation, dark advertising and chatbots. Within an attention-driven information ecosystem, disinformation, polarisation and hate speech can be amplified, while algorithms increasingly shape what we see, value and discuss, with consequences for democracy, electoral processes and collective identities.

Automation and digital platforms are also transforming work, creating new opportunities while generating precarious forms of employment and exploitation. These transformations are marked by deep global inequalities. Countries in the Global South often remain consumers of technology and providers of data, while control over platforms, digital infrastructures and major flows of value remains concentrated in the Global North. This dynamic, associated with Yanis Varoufakis’s concept of “technofeudalism”, can reinforce historical economic, technological and cultural dependencies rooted in colonial structures.

It is within this context that MFF 2026 — Artificial Realities: Infinite Mirror emerges as a space for critical and plural reflection on the impacts, risks, limits and possibilities of artificial intelligence and new technologies. Drawing on African, critical, decolonial and feminist perspectives, while engaging with global experiences, the conference seeks to explore the intersections between technology, sovereignty, ecology, the arts, democracy and justice.

Rather than positioning Africa as a passive recipient of technological systems, MFF 2026 seeks to affirm the continent as a space of knowledge production, creativity and imagination, contributing to collective pathways towards more just, equitable, sustainable and peaceful futures — futures that place life, human dignity and the common good at their centre.

PANEL STRUCTURE

1 Opening Talk (2 keynote speakers and 1 moderator) and max. 3 / 4 panels (2/3 speakers and 1 moderator per panel).

Note: The panels will seek to ensure gender balance and African representativeness; moderators will be national.

Panel 0 / Opening Talk: INFINITE MIRROR: Reflecting on Ethics and Power in the Age of the Algorithm

Conferences

Tuesday

27 OUT
6:00 PM

TORRE JFS – Baixa, Maputo – RES DE CHAO

As artificial intelligence and digital systems increasingly structure dimensions of public and private life — from the information we consume to the institutional decisions that shape economies, policies and social relations — it becomes urgent to interrogate who designs, controls and benefits from these digital infrastructures. This opening panel proposes a critical and broad reflection on the “digital planet” we inhabit today: an invisible territory of data, codes, algorithms and platforms that reorganises power, knowledge and forms of governance.

This opening conversation aims to open a reflection on how artificial intelligence systems, massive data and digital platforms shape perceptions, decisions and social hierarchies, profoundly influencing how the world is interpreted, governed and lived. What are the ethical and political risks of automation: AI, digital surveillance, classification and monitoring of bodies, forms of algorithmic discrimination, digital exclusion and emerging forms of data colonialism, often masked by discourses of technological neutrality, innovation and efficiency?

In a global context marked by growing armed conflicts and new forms of warfare, reflection on the growing role of artificial intelligence in the militarisation of societies and as a field of geopolitical dispute is also important. AI not only redefines forms of combat, but also who may live, who may die, and under what conditions. In this sense, algorithms become devices of selection, classification and exclusion, prolonging historical logics of domination, racialisation and control, now reconfigured into codes and digital systems.

At the same time, the panel opens space to imagine other, more ethical and just possibilities for the technological future. How can societies regulate and guide the development of artificial intelligence in a democratic, fair and responsible way? What role can epistemologies of the South, feminist perspectives and decolonial approaches play in building more equitable technological systems? And what paths exist to strengthen technological sovereignty, algorithmic transparency, public governance of data and ethics in the programming of machines? But above all, where is the African continent situated in these debates?

Between risks and possibilities, cautious and optimistic perspectives, this conversation invites us to rethink new technologies, and artificial intelligence in particular, not only as technical innovations but as a political and civilisational field, where it is decided which real–virtual futures will be possible, and for whom.

Keywords

ethics of artificial intelligence · algorithmic power · data colonialism · technological sovereignty · digital regulation · decoloniality · technology and democracy · technology and power

Speakers: Wakanyi Hoffman (KE), Mia Couto (MZ)

MODERATOR: Severino Ngoenha (MZ)

Panel 1: POLITICAL MIRROR: Reflecting on Democracy and the Collapse of Truth

Conferences

Wednesday

28 OUT
6:00 PM

TORRE JFS – Baixa, Maputo – RES DE CHAO

This panel examines the erosion of democracy and the expansion of authoritarian regimes in light of the political impact of artificial intelligence and digital platforms. It reflects on how democracy has been “hacked” by technologies mobilised to manipulate electoral processes, normalise repression and control the circulation of information — a power now concentrated in large technology companies that, through their control of digital infrastructures, data and algorithms, have the potential to shape public debate, influence governments, determine international regulations and privilege their own private interests.

In this digital ecosystem dominated by the attention economy, disinformation through deepfakes and bots blurs the line between the real and the fictitious, weakening democratic debate and challenging truth itself. This collapse of truth operates unequally: women and LGBTQIA+ people are preferred targets of hate speech, harassment and algorithmic violence, in a dynamic where algorithms and visibility metrics redefine who speaks, who is heard and who participates in the digital public space.

At the same time, the panel looks at emerging forms of resistance and reinvention of political action in the digital environment, including networked activism, Generation Z protests, new forms of digital solidarity and struggles over digital public space as a territory of visibility, mobilisation and democratic imagination. Between algorithmic control and collective action, the panel interrogates the limits and possibilities of democracy in an age of artificial intelligence and renewed forms of imperialism.

Keywords

democracy · imperialism · contemporary authoritarianisms · surveillance and control · elections and information manipulation · post-truth · disinformation · algorithmic violence · gender and power · youth and protests · networked activism · digital rights · digital public space

Speakers

Dércio Tsandzana (MZ), Carlos Mabutana (MZ), Quitéria Guirengane (MZ)

Moderator

Géssica Macamo (MZ)

Panel 2: ECOLOGICAL MIRROR: Reflecting on Habitable Digital Futures

Conferences

Thursday

29 OUT
6:00 PM

TORRE JFS – Baixa, Maputo – RES DE CHAO

This panel examines the ecological impact of artificial intelligence and new digital technologies, bringing to the centre of the debate the often invisibilised environmental costs of digitalisation, from energy consumption and the massive and unbridled extraction of critical minerals to data infrastructures and electronic and technological waste. It shows that the existence of the “virtual” and the “digital” depends on a materiality that largely represents the degradation of planet Earth. In particular, it seeks to bring a reflection on what this means for the African reality, considering that almost one-third of the world’s critical minerals, indispensable to the digital economy and to artificial intelligence, are found on the continent. The debate also seeks to question technocratic approaches that tend to reduce living ecosystems to sets of abstract data, interrogating the limits of these solutions when disconnected from specific social, political and ecological contexts.

In parallel, the panel creates space to reflect on the ways in which these technologies are being mobilised to respond to the climate crisis, through simulation models, forecasting systems and environmental monitoring technologies, while also seeking to understand the potential positive impacts of digital technologies on territorial planning processes, the management of natural resources, the organisation of space and the conservation of biodiversity, particularly in contexts marked by profound social and environmental inequalities.

Between algorithms and ecosystems, this panel proposes a critical reflection on how to orient digital technologies to support more ecological and habitable climate futures, while at the same time summoning other intelligences and epistemologies rooted in ancestrality, in order to rethink a future that sustains planetary life.

Keywords

climate crisis · environmental impact of AI · digital infrastructures · mineral extraction · electronic waste · political ecology · techno-solutions · climate and environmental justice · environmental data · territorial planning · socio-environmental inequalities · habitable futures

Speakers

Fadhel Kaboub (TNS/EUA), Fátima Mimbire (MZ), João Camargo (PT),
Isildo Nhantumbo (MZ)

Moderator: Erika Mendes (MZ

Panel 3: CREATIVE MIRROR: Reflecting on Artistic Creation in the Digital Civilisation

Conferences

Friday

30 OUT
6:00 PM

TORRE JFS – Baixa, Maputo – RES DE CHAO

This panel proposes an in-depth reflection on the structural transformations that new digital technologies — including artificial intelligence, platforms, algorithms and generative systems — introduce into artistic creation processes, cultural circulation and the production of symbolic value.

Central questions such as authorship, copyright, related rights, the use of artistic works in the training of algorithmic systems and fair remuneration of creators occupy the centre of the debate, highlighting persistent tensions between technological innovation, cultural rights, and philosophical and political implications. What does authorship mean in a context of human–algorithm co-creation? How are the notions of originality, of the work and of the creative gesture transformed? What regimes of visibility, legitimation and artistic consecration emerge when algorithms come to decide what circulates, what is valued and what remains invisible?

At the same time, the panel invokes art as an active field of resistance and critical imagination. Artists, collectives and experimental practices draw on digital technologies and the possibilities of Extended Reality (XR) to subvert extractive logics and propose new forms of relationship between creation, technology and the common good. Between appropriation and emancipation, this panel invites us to think of art not only as an object affected by technology, but as an active force in the reconfiguration of digital futures.

Keywords

art and technology · generative artificial intelligence · authorship · copyright · cultural rights · digital platforms · creative economy · algorithmic aesthetics · ethics of creation · philosophy of technique · artistic resistance · Extended Reality

Speakers

Tegan Bristow (ZA), Russel Hlongwane (ZA), Valério Lopes (Lux / CPV)
Yara Costa Pereira (MZ)

Moderator: Eduardo Quive (MZ)

LEARNING CIRCLES

LEARNING CIRCLE 1 — Rhizomatic Realities: Relational Rituals of Resistance

LEARNING CIRCLE

Saturday

24 OUT
11h00–22h00

7th Floor

A walking ritual of resistance that enhances our senses through practicing perceiving, relating and responding to living beings and overlooked realities of Maputo. Expect fungal stuff. It will be interactive and performative; rational and irrational; playful and poetic; serious and silly. We will do things that computers cannot do, and sense within landscapes that stretches beyond the roam of the algorithms. Mayhaps will we enter a doorway to composting colonial patterns into rhizomatic, non-conformist practices?

Participants: anna nordahl carlsen (Norway) and Fungal Friends.

LEARNING CIRCLE 2 — Kancícà: An Immersive Experience Between Benin, Brazil and the Black Atlantic

LEARNING CIRCLE

Saturday

24 OUT
14h00–16h00

7th Floor

At a time when questions of memory and
identity deeply shape our societies, Kancícà, which means “bond” in Fon, offers
a sensitive exploration of the enduring presence of African cultures and
spiritualities on both sides of the Atlantic. Beyond its narrative and
aesthetic ambitions, Kancícà was conceived as a platform for cultural mediation
and the transmission of memory, celebrating the diversity of Afro-descendant
communities who, despite exile and slavery, have preserved and reinvented their
cultural heritage in Brazil and, more broadly, throughout the Americas.

Participants: Michael Swierczynski (France), Laeïla Adjovi (Benin), Joséphine Derobe (France), MansA (France)

LEARNING CIRCLE 3 — Event Experiences / Digital Artists

LEARNING CIRCLE

Saturday

24OUT
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

A new generation of digital artists invites us to take a sidestep and look at our digital world with a critical eye.

How to physically spread to a large audience the imaginaries and critical spirit of this new scene by organizing cultural events: exhibitions, festivals, performances and workshops.

The example of “Escape, digital generations”* an exhibition designed to provide a better understanding of global and diverse digital cultures. And who make us aware of our everyday use of digital technologies and its repercussions on our lives and environment. And the sharing by guests of other events experiments in past, present and future.

Participants: Eric Boulo (France), Antonin Fourneau (France)

LEARNING CIRCLE 4 — ReFunct Media — Dead Media, Living Material 1/3

LEARNING CIRCLE

Tuesday

27 OUT

11h00–13h00

13° Andar

Here is an introduction to the latest investigation and practice: with two and five years of obsolete work, corrupted files and printed circuit boards have been destroyed. If there is an electronic lixo, the wave will go, it will destroy and these conditions. This is the central question of the week: is the lixo a problem to manage or a material to work?

FACILITATOR: Benjamin Gaulon (FR)

LEARNING CIRCLE 5 — Comics, Animation and Gaming: The Emergence of Storytelling Tools on the Continent

LEARNING CIRCLE

Tuesday

27 OUT
11h00–13h00

7th Floor

How can African creative talent be transformed into a sustainable industry? Representatives from BD-PALOP, FX Animation Studios, ANIMA, Iuri Chitará and Tshimologong Team share their experiences of the challenges facing comics, animation and gaming in Africa. They explore opportunities for training, funding, collaboration and the circulation of visual narratives that reflect the continent’s imaginations and realities.

Participants: BD-PALOP (Portugal), FX Animation Studios (Mozambique), ANIMA (Mozambique), Iuri Chitará (Mozambique), Tshimologong Team (South Africa)

LEARNING CIRCLE 6 — Futuring Education in the Technological Ecosystem

LEARNING CIRCLE

Tuesday

27 OUT
14h00–16h00

7th Floor

Education is at the heart of a structural transformation. Artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and cognitive automation are reshaping not only pedagogical methods but the very architecture of knowledge: they open up possibilities for democratizing knowledge, expanding inclusive pedagogies, and connecting global and local knowledge, while platforms, social networks, and AI systems compete with teachers, libraries, and curricula as mediators of knowledge—and often replace them.

What does it mean to learn when answers are instantaneous and it is increasingly difficult to distinguish human from algorithmic production? What skills will continue to be central? And, in the African context, how can we prevent unequal access to digital infrastructures from deepening educational exclusion and AI from silencing local knowledge, oral traditions, and African languages? More than a technological revolution, we are experiencing an epistemological transformation: this wheel is an invitation to think about the future of Education.

Participants: Nuno Soares (Mozambique), Girl Move Academy (Mozambique), EduGame (listed as NB in the programme)

LEARNING CIRCLE 7 — Within and Beyond the Structures of Knowledge

LEARNING CIRCLE

Tuesday

27 OUT
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

The intervention uses the Ifu Elimnyama project’s artistic research methodology to demonstrate the limits and opportunities presented by working between local and imported knowledge systems. The intervention seeks to ask, how do practitioners in Mozambique operate local and globalised knowledge systems. Furthermore asks, how might knowledges structures travel between localities in Southern Africa?

Facilitator: Russel Hlongwane (South Africa).

LEARNING CIRCLE 8 — Imagining Africa through Africology (Rebooting Histories, Culture, and Artificial Intelligence)

LEARNING CIRCLE

Wednesday

28 OUT
11h00–13h00

7th Floor

How can we continue our legacies starting from our cultures? In this “learning circle” of Applied Africology, Val Lopes proposes an encounter between African narratives and technology.

The session includes a screening of the film *The Africologist: Chronicles of Africa* (72 minutes), followed by a participatory workshop. Based on the film and the sharing of his creative process, Valério invites participants to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on African cultures and the possibilities of creation with digital technologies.

The practical component combines conversation, a narrative construction exercise, and interactive experiences: an educational game inspired by Angolan Sona, an interactive djembe, and a modified Unitree Go2 robot. These elements allow for exploring the transition from cinema to other forms of artistic expression.

The meeting invites us to imagine new ways of telling stories, placing African knowledge and references at the center of the creative process and the relationship with technology.

Facilitator: Valério Lopes (Luxembourg / Cape Verde, as listed in the programme).

LEARNING CIRCLE 9 — ReFunct Medi— Reparar as Conhecimento 2/3

LEARNING CIRCLE

Wednesday

28 OUT
11h00–13h00

13th Floor

Here is an introduction to the latest investigation and practice: with two and five years of obsolete work, corrupted files and printed circuit boards have been destroyed. If there is an electronic lixo, the wave will go, it will destroy and these conditions. This is the central question of the week: is the lixo a problem to manage or a material to work?

FACILITATOR: Benjamin Gaulon (FR)

LEARNING CIRCLE 10— Misogynistic Mirror: Gender and Algorithms

LEARNING CIRCLE

Wednesday

28 OUT
14h00–16h00

7th Floor

Far from being neutral, AI systems are built from data and models that incorporate existing societal biases. This roundtable analyzes how artificial intelligence and digital platforms can amplify misogyny and digital violence—online harassment, image manipulation, exclusion in automated decision-making systems, and the reproduction of gender stereotypes—while also discussing the positive impact AI can have on women’s participation in public life, the digital economy, and knowledge production.

The conversation explores feminist and intersectional approaches to the design and regulation of fairer and more inclusive technologies: who builds the technologies of the future, what values are inscribed in them, and how can we ensure that innovation contributes to more equitable societies?

Participants: Sandra Manuel (Mozambique), Girl Move Academy (Mozambique).

Moderator: Lara Longle (Portugal).

LEARNING CIRCLE 11 — ReFunct Media 3/3

LEARNING CIRCLE

Thursday

29 OUT
11h00–13h00

13th Floor

Far from being neutral, AI systems are built from data and models that incorporate existing societal biases. This roundtable analyzes how artificial intelligence and digital platforms can amplify misogyny and digital violence—online harassment, image manipulation, exclusion in automated decision-making systems, and the reproduction of gender stereotypes—while also discussing the positive impact AI can have on women’s participation in public life, the digital economy, and knowledge production.

The conversation explores feminist and intersectional approaches to the design and regulation of fairer and more inclusive technologies: who builds the technologies of the future, what values are inscribed in them, and how can we ensure that innovation contributes to more equitable societies?

Participants: Sandra Manuel (Mozambique), Girl Move Academy (Mozambique).

Moderator: Lara Longle (Portugal).

LEARNING CIRCLE 12 — The Future of Work and Generation Z

LEARNING CIRCLE

Wednesday

28 OUT
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

Automation, artificial intelligence, and platform economies are profoundly reshaping the labor market, fragmenting traditional employment and multiplying hybrid forms of income. For many young Africans, in a context of structural unemployment and informality, these transformations allow them to overcome historical barriers: creating their own work, accessing global markets, and learning autonomously. But work also becomes more unstable, less protected, and more dependent on platforms that concentrate power, with deep inequalities persisting in access to technology, connectivity, and training.

Between innovation and precarization, between the formal and the informal, Generation Z is experimenting with and redefining what it means to work. This wheel invites us to look at this transition: what future of work is emerging, and for whom? How can we transform innovation into inclusion?

Participants: Ruth Castel-Branco (South Africa), Valquíria Pondja (Mozambique).

Moderator: Nélio Macombo (Mozambique).

LEARNING CIRCLE 13 — Artificial Intelligence, Social Sciences and the Arts in Mozambique

LEARNING CIRCLE

Thursday

29 OUT
11h00–13h00

7th Floor

How can we continue our legacies starting from our cultures? In this “learning circle” of Applied Africology, Val Lopes proposes an encounter between African narratives and technology.

The session includes a screening of the film *The Africologist: Chronicles of Africa* (72 minutes), followed by a participatory workshop. Based on the film and the sharing of his creative process, Valério invites participants to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on African cultures and the possibilities of creation with digital technologies.

The practical component combines conversation, a narrative construction exercise, and interactive experiences: an educational game inspired by Angolan Sona, an interactive djembe, and a modified Unitree Go2 robot. These elements allow for exploring the transition from cinema to other forms of artistic expression.

The meeting invites us to imagine new ways of telling stories, placing African knowledge and references at the center of the creative process and the relationship with technology.

PARTICIPANTS: Denise Malauene-UEM (MZ), Dércio Tsandzana – AFRAMO CHS (MZ), Aurélio Furdela (MZ)

MODERATOR: Uacitissa Mandamule (MZ)

(MZ)

LEARNING CIRCLE 14 — Conducting Research in the Age of AI: Practices and Ethics

LEARNING CIRCLE

Thursday

29 OUT
14h00–16h00

7th Floor

How can we continue our legacies starting from our cultures? In this “learning circle” of Applied Africology, Val Lopes proposes an encounter between African narratives and technology.

The session includes a screening of the film *The Africologist: Chronicles of Africa* (72 minutes), followed by a participatory workshop. Based on the film and the sharing of his creative process, Valério invites participants to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on African cultures and the possibilities of creation with digital technologies.

The practical component combines conversation, a narrative construction exercise, and interactive experiences: an educational game inspired by Angolan Sona, an interactive djembe, and a modified Unitree Go2 robot. These elements allow for exploring the transition from cinema to other forms of artistic expression.

The meeting invites us to imagine new ways of telling stories, placing African knowledge and references at the center of the creative process and the relationship with technology.

Facilitator: Elcidio Macuacua- Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (MZ), Sérgio Jeremias
Langa (ESJ) Vali Issufo (UEM)

MODERATOR: Uacitissa Mandamule (MZ)

LEARNING CIRCLE 15 — Who Programs Nature? (Kambaku's Perspective on AI and Conservation in Mozambique)

LEARNING CIRCLE

Thursday

29 OUT
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

Today we know where an elephant is because a GPS collar tells us. We count whales with sonar and identify poachers with forensic science. The nature we see is increasingly a nature mediated by technology. In this Knowledge Circle, Kambaku takes the “Infinite Mirror” of the MFF (Mozambican Wildlife Management) into Mozambican ecosystems. Biologists, veterinarians, conservation area managers, educators, and the public sit in the same circle to ask: if technology gives us a mirror of nature, who holds that mirror? We are talking about how sensors, data, and AI help protect wildlife and manage human-wildlife conflict with limited resources. We also talk about what is left out of the data and the environmental cost of digital technology. And we talk about the encounter between technical knowledge and the community knowledge of those who live with wildlife. The session ends with a toast to Kambaku’s two years.

Facilitator: Kambaku (Mozambique).

LEARNING CIRCLE 16 — Gaming Community Showcase

LEARNING CIRCLE

Friday

30 OUT
11h00–13h00

7th Floor

Today we know where an elephant is because a GPS collar tells us. We count whales with sonar and identify poachers with forensic science. The nature we see is increasingly a nature mediated by technology. In this Knowledge Circle, Kambaku takes the “Infinite Mirror” of the MFF (Mozambican Wildlife Management) into Mozambican ecosystems. Biologists, veterinarians, conservation area managers, educators, and the public sit in the same circle to ask: if technology gives us a mirror of nature, who holds that mirror? We are talking about how sensors, data, and AI help protect wildlife and manage human-wildlife conflict with limited resources. We also talk about what is left out of the data and the environmental cost of digital technology. And we talk about the encounter between technical knowledge and the community knowledge of those who live with wildlife. The session ends with a toast to Kambaku’s two years.

Participants: Iuri Chitará (Mozambique), Richard Fornasini (Mozambique), Claude Champier (Mozambique), Atílio Manjate (Mozambique), Fak’ugesi Team (South Africa).

LEARNING CIRCLE 17 — OK/KO: Who has the authority to speak about design?

LEARNING CIRCLE

Friday

30 OUT
14h00–16h00

7th Floor

Who has the authority to speak about design, and which voices are left out? Drawing on Eva Gonçalves’s work with “O.K. K.O.” and the experience of Ellipsis Open School, this Knowledge Circle proposes a collective reflection on diversity, critique and design education. In dialogue with designer Júlia Sarmento and participants, it explores how to broaden

Facilitator: Eva Gonçalves (PT) and Julia Sarmento (MZ)

LEARNING CIRCLE 18 — Ancestral Futures in Design

LEARNING CIRCLE

Friday

30 OUT
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

What if the way we understand materials is shaped by the knowledge systems from which they emerge?

Future Ancestors in Design: Healing Fabrics is a Learning Circle that explores indigenous knowledge systems as sources of innovation in textile design and as possibilities for rethinking the relationship between matter, body, earth, and spirit.

Based on Karingana’s research on indigenous plants from Mozambique, natural dyes, ancestral symbols, and textile practices linked to protection, well-being, and daily ritual, we propose a reflection on the ontology of materials: what is a material, what does it carry, and what relationships and knowledge can exist within it?

A plant can simultaneously be medicine, color, fiber, food, territory, memory, and knowledge. Similarly, a fabric can be more than an object we wear. It can be memory, language, protection, ritual, connection to a place, or a portal between the visible and the invisible.

In this Learning Circle, we explore the cosmology of materials and ask what might happen when indigenous ways of knowing and understanding the world begin to inform how we imagine and design the future.

Participants: Karingana wa Karingana (Mozambique)

LEARNING CIRCLE 19 — Digital Animation Overview 3D

LEARNING CIRCLE

Saturday

31 OUT
14h00–16h00

7th Floor

A meeting that brings together participants from Madagascar, Mauritius, South Africa, and Mozambique to share experiences, discuss the challenges and opportunities of animation, and reflect on the future of the sector in the region. With the participation of three Mozambicans who recently attended Fak’ugesi training, the event promotes the exchange of knowledge, creativity, and collaboration among African animation artists and professionals.

Participants: FX Animation Studios (Mozambique)

LEARNING CIRCLE 20 — Independent Creative Hubs

LEARNING CIRCLE

Saturday

31 OUT
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

A new generation of digital artists invites us to take a sidestep and look at our digital world with a critical eye.

How to physically spread to a large audience the imaginaries and critical spirit of this new scene by organizing cultural events: exhibitions, festivals, performances and workshops.

The example of “Escape, digital generations”* an exhibition designed to provide a better understanding of global and diverse digital cultures. And who make us aware of our everyday use of digital technologies and its repercussions on our lives and environment. And the sharing by guests of other events experiments in past, present and future.

Participants: Elodie Finel (France), Ingrid Kopp (South Africa), Evaristo Abreu (Mozambique), Diogo Donato (Mozambique), Fak’ugesi (South Africa), Tshimologong (South Africa).

Participants: João Ribeiro, together with the Mozambican filmmaking community

LEARNING CIRCLE 21 — The Dynamics of Filmmaking

LEARNING CIRCLE

Sunday

1 NOV
16h00–18h00

7th Floor

A new generation of digital artists invites us to take a sidestep and look at our digital world with a critical eye.

How to physically spread to a large audience the imaginaries and critical spirit of this new scene by organizing cultural events: exhibitions, festivals, performances and workshops.

The example of “Escape, digital generations”* an exhibition designed to provide a better understanding of global and diverse digital cultures. And who make us aware of our everyday use of digital technologies and its repercussions on our lives and environment. And the sharing by guests of other events experiments in past, present and future.

Participants: João Ribeiro, together with the Mozambican filmmaking community

Music

Concert: Bokani Dyer (ZA)

Music

FRIDAY

30 OUT
20H00-22h00

CCFM – Maputo

Bokani Dyer presents Traditions, his new album, in a live concert at the CCFM Main Hall, as part of the Maputo Fast Forward 2026 programme.

In this project, the South African pianist and composer revisits the musical influences that have shaped his journey, reinterpreting existing compositions through a piano trio format and giving them a fresh perspective with a contemporary approach.

Tickets: 800 MT (general admission) | 700 MT (Cultural Club members) | 300 MT (students, for the first 50 physical tickets).

Physical ticket sales: CCFM, starting 28 October, from 09:00–14:00 and 15:00–18:00.

Tickets are available online through Tabater.mz.

Come and experience Traditions live in a musical journey that brings together memory, tradition and innovation.

Fast Forward Party — Closing Party

Music

Saturday

31 OUT
21H00

Ground floor

Workshops

𝙍𝙚𝙁𝙐𝙉𝘾𝙏 𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙄𝘼 “𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙙𝙞𝙚. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙜𝙤 𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡.”

Workshops

27/28/29 Oct
11H00-13h00

TORRE JFS – Baixa, Maputo – 13th floor

Algumas machines não morrem. Tornam-se selvagens.
Is it safe to say that I don’t have any function to turn it on?

O ReFunct Media Maputo, with artist and investigator Benjamin Gaulon (Recyclism), offers a weekly weekly workshop dedicated to reusing, repairing, hacking and transforming electronic lixo.

Televisions, radios, cassette players, computers, electronic bundles, columns, projectors, components and other devices will be disassembled, reused and connected if they want to hear new relays and new functions.

No technical experience is necessary.
Artists, musicians, designers, engineers, students, repairers and pessoas curiosas são bem-vindos. The hardware, components and technical guidance will be available during the workshop.

Facilitator:

Benjamin Gaulon (FR)

Performances

TradiMensional By Gerson Mbalango (MZ)

Performances

WEDNESDAY

27 OUT
20H00-21h00

ground floor

Performer:

Gerson Mbalango (MZ)

TradiMensional is a multidisciplinary artistic project by Gerson Mbalango that explores the relationship between Mbira, sound design, and mental health. Its sound construction stems from testimonies about emotional experiences and challenges of mental health, transformed into artistic material through sound experimentation. The result is an immersive experience that invites deep listening, introspection, and reflection on human emotions and healing processes.

Digital Roots: Ancestral Intelligence

Performances

WEDNESDAY

28 OUT
20H00-21h00

Fundação Fernando Leite Couto

Performer:

Nuro Sumalgy (MZ)

A multidisciplinary performance that combines theater, music, movement, sound, and digital images to explore the encounter between human talent and artificial intelligence. Through a narrative that questions the boundaries between reality and illusion, identity and transformation, the project proposes a collectively constructed artistic experience where body, sound, and technology complement each other. An initiative of 16Neto, New Kids promotes creative dialogue between young artists and experienced professionals, and is performing for the third time at Maputo Fast Forward.

Ways of Water A sonic journey through Gorongosa National Park

Performances

THURSDAY

29 OUT
20H00-21h00

Main Room

Performer:

Dércio “Muha” Gomate

In the southern Great Rift Valley of Africa, Mount Gorongosa captures moisture from the coast, creating mist and water sources that sustain Gorongosa National Park and its biodiversity. Following the Water tracks this cycle throughout the year, recording the changes in the soundscape between drought and rainfall. From scarcity to abundance, life transforms. The project invites us to listen to these ancestral sounds and rediscover the connection between nature, territory, and humanity.

The Infinite Garment

Performances

SATURDAY

31 OUT
20H00-21h00

Performer: De Shaazia Adam (MZ)

Infinite Garment explores what happens to fashion when the body becomes an interface. Clothing has always communicated who we are. Today, technology is beginning to do the same thing. Algorithms influence what we see.

AI can reconstruct our faces.

Digital platforms construct versions of our identities. Virtual clothing can exist without a physical garment. And increasingly, the distinction between who we are, how we appear and how technology represents us becomes blurred. If technology can create infinite versions of ourselves, which one is real?

Xiluva, le Miroir et l’Artifice

Performances

SATURDAY

31 OUT
20H00-21h00

Performer: Beauty Sitoe, Orfélia Nhantuve, Arlete Nhantumbo, Prisca Finasse e Catarina Tembe.

A multidisciplinary performance that combines theater, music, music, sound creation and numerical images to explore the encounter between human talent and artificial intelligence. Through a recipe that interroges the frontiers between réalité and illusion, identité and transformation, the project proposes a collective artist experience or corps, the son and the technology are complètent. Initiated by 16Neto, New Kids favors the creative dialogue between young artists and professional experiments and is present for the three days in Maputo Fast Forward.

Exhibitions (Floors: 1th, 6th, 13th and 14th)
Constant hours: 11:00 – 21:00
Exhibition Dates:
Saturday, October 24
Tuesday to Saturday: October 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31
Sunday, November 1

Aerial Cartographies: The Invisible

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Dilayla Romeo (ESP-MZ)

The Unseen explores visible and invisible worlds through photography, natural materials, textiles, light, and sound. Drawing from African cosmologies and spiritual understandings of the unseen, the installation creates an immersive landscape where hidden realities become spaces for imagination, perception, and connection. Through aerial photographs of landscapes, photographic representations, and spiritual worlds, the work explores the parallels between what can be seen and what remains unseen, inviting us to perceive different layers of reality and the connections between them.

Baraza VR

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Alex Mkwizu (Tanzania)

Baraza, an immersive-futuristic 8-10 minute VR court experience set in 2050 where humans stand trial before sentient AIs an age where AI is has achieved singularity. The participant becomes the defendant, facing a case brought by artificial beings who claim harm, exploitation, and denial of dignity. The court is presided over by Ubuntu-Bot, a generative AI judge built and inspired on African communal justice systems i.e Ubuntu, where justice emphasizes restoration, collective responsibility, and dialogue rather than punishment.

Church of the Holy Prompt

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Adilson de Oliveira (ZA)

Welcome to the Church.

In Church of the Holy Prompt, Adilson De Oliveira performs Prompt Jones — preacher, propagandist, heretic and unreliable prophet of the machine.

Jones believes artificial intelligence might be one answer to the rotten labour systems the art world and wider economy have spent centuries pretending are inevitable: invisible workers, unpaid cultural labour, inherited privilege, colonial access to education, production and capital, and the small ruling class that still gets to decide who speaks, who owns, who profits and who disappears.

For him, the machine carries a dangerous promise. It can collapse skills guarded by class, geography and money. It can give people tools they were never meant to have. It can threaten the priesthood of expertise. It can fuck with the old borders between centre and periphery.

But every liberation technology arrives with an owner.

Behind the miracle sit corporations, server farms, mineral extraction, stolen datasets, cheap labour and another scramble to privatise the future. The empire has not disappeared. It has acquired better branding.

Prompt Jones knows this. He preaches anyway.

The exhibition sits inside that contradiction. Is he a civil-rights missionary arguing for technological access as a weapon of decolonial progress, or simply another charismatic bastard turning uncertainty into scripture? Is he trying to distribute power, or building a congregation around his own certainty? At what point does emancipation become evangelism? At what point does the sermon become the Kool-Aid?

Through video, augmented reality, installation and performance, De Oliveira puts himself on trial alongside the technology he uses. There is no moral balcony here. He is believer and sceptic, beneficiary and critic, preacher and congregation.

Artificial intelligence did not invent exploitation.

It removed the alibi.

The prompt becomes prayer. The server becomes altar. Capital owns the church.

And Prompt Jones keeps preaching.

Digital Generations

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artists: Various Artists (FR)

E_s_c_a_p_e_,_ _digital generations_ _is an exhibition designed to provide a better understanding of global and diverse digital cultures. It features past, present and future stories of our lives in the digital age through the eyes of artists.

While they become increasingly innovative, intuitive and easy to use, it is essential to fully understand these technologies and to remain vigilant about how they were created, by whom, and for what purpose. Understanding how they work, sharpening our critical thinking and learning how to handle them is essential if we are to remain in control as users of digital tools.

This is what the artists and creators of the Escape exhibition offer through their works and their hacks. With their offbeat, playful, parodic and sometimes absurd creations, a new generation of digital artists is calling out to us, warning us of the risks that come with these tools and making us aware of our everyday use of digital technologies and its repercussions on our lives and environment.

Like many committed users who act individually or collectively, these artists use these powerful tools to promote diversity, defend minorities or local communities and make their voices heard.

Heroes Of The Indian Ocean

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Alex Mkwizu (Tanzania)

Heroes Of The Indian Ocean, is a 360/XR film mini-documentary series that sensitizes the need to increase efforts in marine conservation mainly by increasing no-take Marine Protected Areas. By highlighting the essence of coral reefs as the beating heart of the ocean and how coastal communities are heavily dependent on them to thrive to allow the marine ecosystem to prosper and allow spill-over to sustain coastal communities that for generations and generations have been dependent on fishing and ocean tourism.

The Black Cloud

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Russel Hlongwane (ZA)

The young uMalanje rubs his body with rust-colored mud. Barefoot, he enters a new sphere, a place in another world. Noise interference and digital noise accompany his mission. Timidly he touches the metallic structures, which lie piled on top of each other like timeless and masterless remnants of a long-gone culture. One learns of a dark cloud, the Dark Cloud, a powerful instance that has been contaminated. So much so that the symbiosis of knowledge and orientation has been thrown of course, and Inkanyamba, the mystical snake of the sky, can no longer locate its GPS signal. A powerful voice that lays over the scenario tells this story. It refers to the sunny city of Mapungubwe, a flourishing metropolis from 1220 that was to experience its demise just 70 years later. Step by step, uMalanje explores this place. He has traveled through time and space to

warn the city’s inhabitants. Against the Internet, a futuristic power that can store supposedly free knowledge in the cloud but cannot protect it from corruption and monetization. The cinematic work of South African cultural producer Russell Hlongwane expects a lot from its recipients. The narrative winds around concepts such as Inkanyamba and Mapungubwe, which are central to Zulu culture and South African history. Even a glossary can be found about his work, consisting of

Zulu culture vocabulary and new words created especially for this work. The timeless narrative, which seems to come equally from the past and the present, is like a transcendental journey. One traverses Zulu religious traditions and encounters contemporary concepts of digitalized knowledge. Like uMalanje, one can draw on this experience in which global and temporal systems seem obsolete. Hlongwane does not allow for a dominant narrative. He challenges us to understand knowledge independently of time and space, to question the Western self-attribution of digital supremacy, and to refuse the egocentric attribution of skills to specific cultures.

Instead of Wings, I Have Ears

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artists: Nicola Baratto & Yiannis Mouravas (IT / GR)

Baratto & Mouravas participate in the present edition of Maputo Fast Forward Festival as part of Uma Ponte Feita de Arte, the cultural partnership program promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture. Their contribution unfolds as a workshop and a resulting installation, rooted in their Archaeodreaming practice.

Proposing ideas of world-making through multimedia research and drawing tensions between archaeology, heritage and material culture, the artist duo will lead a workshop exploring the relationship between personal and collective memory, and the role of the past in imagining alternative futures. They will explore the open possibilities of fieldwork, collaborative constellations, and oral storytelling to create a sound installation featuring ceramic speakers.

In collaboration with sound artist Nandele, they developed a research collection of sounds, meditations and fluctuations of life moving on plates. Interwoven with memories, associations, and reflections that surface in transit, these sounds seem like an invisible map of contemporary urban experience, observed through Maputo’s moving taxi van. The research is presented through an installation featuring ceramic vases that function as speakers, produced in collaboration with local ceramist Faizal Omar Ussuman.

Pan-African Cemetery

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Zayaan Khan (ZA)

Pan African Graveyard is an edible installation and immersive landscape that invites audiences to walk among the buried histories of African liberation. Beginning with the question of how Africans have come to experience one another as foreign, the landscape moves through the contradictions of nationalism, liberation and belonging.

Visitors follow a winding path through hills populated by the graves of African political figures, before descending towards a darker landscape of unmarked graves and unnamed dead. Above them, cascades of dehydrated oranges create a shifting, atmospheric sunlight.

The work draws on ideas of Pan-Africanism, Afropolitanism and necropolitics, asking what happens when dreams of liberation encounter borders, exclusion and political violence.

The installation invites visitors not simply to remember the past, but to walk through it, considering what we choose to bury, what we inherit, and who gets remembered.

We Are All Children of the Spirit

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artists: Karingana Wa Karingana Textiles (MZ)

In an increasingly disconnected world, dreaming can be one of the few moments when we return to ourselves and surrender to the inner knowledge of the subconscious.

We Are All Children of the Spirit invites visitors to reconnect with the forgotten parts of the mind, body, and soul, through textiles, symbols, and the energy contained in each space. Dreaming is traversing different universes within ourselves.

The installation is part of Karingana Wa Karingana’s ongoing research on Healing Textiles, which explores textiles as a space of memory, knowledge, healing, and transformation.

Conceived as a dream room, the installation is organized through the four movements of the Bakongo cosmogram: conception and birth, maturity, death and transformation, return and rebirth. Textiles, plants, African symbols, colors, textures, and objects transform each part of the space into a distinct sensory experience. Color creates atmospheres,

plants appear as living presences, and the symbols inscribed on the textiles carry different languages and forms of knowledge.

Visitors are invited to walk through the installation, rather than simply observing it from a distance. The experience is deliberately sensory, atmospheric, and open, situated somewhere between a dream, a ritual landscape, and a living textile archive. In this space, matter and spirit, ancestry and future, dissolution and renewal coexist as parts of the same continuous movement.

A Bridge Made of Art ARTIST: Various artists

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Various artists

A Bridge Made of Art is a cultural cooperation initiative that brings together Mozambican and Italian artists, curators, and students during three weeks of workshops in Maputo. With over 50 participants, the topics covered were curatorship, the art market, and exhibition documentation. More than training, it is a platform for the next generation of Mozambican cultural professionals. The exhibition that concludes the workshop showcases the artistic positioning of each participant, developed over these weeks and presented through their portfolios. Promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture (Plano Mattei) and the Italian Embassy in Mozambique.

ReFunct Media

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Benjamin Gaulon (FR)

Over one week, we will collect broken and abandoned electronics across Maputo and rebuild them into a single large collective installation. Old televisions, radios, cassette decks, speakers, projectors, computer parts, electronic toys, anything discarded and no longer wanted. Nothing is repaired to work as it did before. Everything is rewired to do something else.

No technical experience is required. Artists, musicians, designers, engineers, students, repairmen and curious people are all welcome. Tools, components and guidance are provided.

The installation we build together will be presented publicly during the closing weekend of the festival.

Portal to the Unknown)

Exhibitions

FRIDAY

23 OUT
11h00–21h00

– Artist: Jonathan Nindorera (Burundi)

Projection mapping is an art to project digital light and animation onto multiple surfaces. Wicket to the Unnamed is a piece that narrates a journey from where we are to where we might be. The future is yet there and it’s up to us to make it liveable. What are the possibilities?

BAZAAR

MFF Bazaar showcasing works and initiatives from Mozambique and the Region.

Bazaar MFF

Bazaar

24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 OUT

01 NOV
11H00-21h00

TORRE JFS – Baixa, Maputo – 6th Floor

ARTIFICIAL REALITIES

FREE ADMISSION, REGISTRATION REQUIRED

All Maputo Fast Forward events are free and open to the public. To attend, you must register through the booking platform. Some events have limited capacity and require advance registration. Check the schedule and reserve your spot to guarantee entry.

PROGRAM

CONFERENCES

LEARNING CIRCLE

MUSIC

WORKSHOPS

PERFORMANCE

EXHIBITIONS

BAZAAR

HIGHLIGHTS

ARTIFICIAL REALITIES

2026 PROGRAM

EVENT BOOKINGS

SPONSORS

PARTNERS

MAPUTO FAST FORWARD

REDES

CONTACTOS

Ideas
with a
future

Initiative of:

Developed by Void

Follow us

Contacts

International Conference

LEARNING CIRCLES

Music

Workshops

Performances

BAZAAR

Add Your Heading Text Here

ARTIFICIAL REALITIES

FREE ADMISSION, REGISTRATION REQUIRED

All Maputo Fast Forward events are free and open to the public. To attend, you must register through the booking platform. Some events have limited capacity and require advance registration. Check the schedule and reserve your spot to guarantee entry.

PROGRAM

CONFERENCES

LEARNING CIRCLE

MUSIC

WORKSHOPS

PERFORMANCE

EXHIBITIONS

BAZAAR

HIGHLIGHTS

ARTIFICIAL REALITIES

2026 PROGRAM

EVENT BOOKINGS

SPONSORS

PARTNERS

MAPUTO FAST FORWARD

REDES

CONTACTOS

Ideas with a future

Initiative of:

Developed by Void

Follow us

Contacts

International Conference

LEARNING CIRCLES

Music

Workshops

Performances

BAZAAR

Add Your Heading Text Here

Ideas
with a
future