Mabunda Moleskine – The colour of Mozambique in a secular object

Secular history

Some call it a diary, some call it a notebook. The Moleskine is neither. With its unmistakable looks and its century-old history, the Moleskine is a lifestyle, just as it was for Oscar Wilde, Hemingway, Van Gogh, Picasso, Bruce Chatwin…

Mabunda’s hand

Today, the Moleskine is also Mozambican. The artist Rodrigo Mabunda made his Moleskine for AtWork, a project by the Moleskine Foundation, brought to life by Adama Sanneh and Simon Njami.

Southern colour

Rodrigo arrived in Venice in 2019, by the hand of the Akka Project, for an art residency and was selected by the Moleskine Foundation, along with 90 African artists, to rework the Moleskine with his vision of the “south”.

Recycling to tell a story

The Moleskine presents everyday life scenes of Maputo – fully a part of the global scene – by Rodrigo Mabunda, a self-taught artist who uses packaging boxes to draw shapes and figures with a ballpoint pen.

Issue 65 Jan/Feb | Download