Ed Cross Fine Art is pleased to present Mario Macilau's most recent series 'Growing in Darkness' at his first exhibition in New York City.
Macilau started taking pictures in 2003 on the streets of the Mozambique's capital Maputo. His acclaimed series Growing in Darkness captures the lives of children across the city growing up unsupervised in abandoned structures, in a world he knows well having spent ten yeras on the streets himself as a youth.
''My aim was to go where everyone advised me not to go. I entered their private spaces: bridges and abandoned buildings wehre they live and sleep, that is, where they camp. These places were very dark, damp and dangerous."
Growing in Darkness is as much about hope, beauty and the resilience of his subjects as it is about a world that fails children. It is rooted in a determination to honour the lives of his subjects without judgement and without pity but with candour and humanity.
The series was part of the Vatican Pavilion's exhibition at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 which centred around the theme "In the beginning there was the World ... the World became flesh". Curator Marie Angela Schroth: "With the art of Macilau we see a new beauty and a new hope for humanity through the creative image."
