The work of Mauro Pinto (Maputo, 1974) draws us into the social spaces, living conditions and experiences of a society that is constantly in question. As an artist working through the medium of photography, Pinto’s political position is based on a perspective that is the result of the anthropological treatment of one of the many ways in which humankind can be observed. This way of looking at the world, which I consider to be the act of observation, arises from a social and cultural contextualization which in the work of Mauro Pinto is centred around human presence, even when this is not immediately perceptible. Sometimes there are inscriptions on the walls of run-down houses, as in one of his black and white photographs entitled “Voz” (Voice), from 2005, or more recently in the series “C’est pas facile”, from 2018, recently exhibited in Portugal, which depicts garments and masks from Burkina Faso. These are images of great chromatic beauty, which may be considered by less attentive or informed viewers to be photographs of traditional sculptures that have been placed in the public area of an earthy and warm location in Africa.