From Guns and Steel to Germs: Malarial Detritus in New Sculptures by Gonçalo Mabunda

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses and theorises work by the celebrated Mozambican artist Gonçalo Mabunda, who is famed for his redeployment of scrap metal into striking sculptures. He is known for using various weapons components in his assemblages, as well as – more recently – industrial scrap items. This article considers the arrival of used, leftover and discarded items used in the Internal Residual Spray (IRS) campaign deployed by the NGO Tchau Tchau Malaria (Goodbye Malaria) into his works. The article first explores the role of waste from guns (what I term “war scrap”) and industrial steel (“modernity trash”), then turns to the significance of sculptures created with malaria-eradication infrastructure (what I term “malarial detritus”). The agents of malaria, usually invisible to the human eye, are combatted through IRS campaigns. Art can make this life-saving scientific intervention visible, and communicable, in innovative ways and can play a key role in communicating the science of malaria eradication.