After 25 years of photographing and living the story intensely, Maputo Diary is finally out in book form.
“25 years is a lifetime” as Ingrácia says. For some of our friends, its longer than what they came to live. It’s been a wild journey. I am grateful to still be here, and to be able to share Maputo Diary with you. And humbled by all the help and guidance I’ve received along the way. I hope Maputo Diary will land softly and soulfully with you.
From the press release:
Disko Bay is proud to present Maputo Diary, a deeply personal and visually arresting monograph by award-winning Danish photographer and filmmaker Ditte Haarløv Johnsen.
The book brings together 25 years of photographic work from Mozambique’s capital, Maputo – the city where Haarløv Johnsen grew up in the aftermath of the victorious War of Independence and during the prolonged civil war.
Through 121 photographs, accompanied by diary notes and newly written texts, Maputo Diary unfolds as an intimate chronicle of lives lived alongside: family, friends, and lovers encountered across many layers of the city’s social fabric.
Over more than two decades, Haarløv Johnsen photographed Maputo from within – its people and places, moments of struggle and celebration, and everyday life. What emerges is not distant observation but a long-term, relational archive shaped by closeness and trust. The work reflects the country’s shifting history through human relationships: how people loved, how they suffered, how they supported one another, and how they persisted.
At the heart of Maputo Diary lies Haarløv Johnsen’s friendship with the Manas (Sisters) – a close circle of transgender women who became central figures in her life and work, many of whom are no longer alive.
Maputo Diary stands as both a personal testimony of a search for belonging and a universal story that finds beauty, dignity, and humanity in moments of vulnerability and resilience alike. With its rich colour palette and calm, contemplative tone, the book draws the viewer into a world rendered intimate through years of shared time and attention.
“Maybe that’s what Maputo Diary is too – an insistence on bearing witness to the lives of others when nobody else was there to make sure they didn’t just disappear.”
– Ditte Haarløv Johnsen, Maputo Diary