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On 10 July, a photo exhibition ‘Mamma Africa’ by Eglė Aukštakalnytė Hansen was opened at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania. The exhibition was opened by Undersecretary of Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Laimonas Talat-Kelpša, who indicated that the continent of Africa was sometimes wrongly perceived in Lithuania as one big state and people often forgot that there were many countries in Africa with a diversity of cultures, traditions and their own history. ‘In this photo exhibition we see not an Africa asking for help, but an Africa that has so much to offer. This is Africa, rich with its distinctive culture, customs, traditions, and nature. It is pleasant to know that people, who have lived in Africa, find it so colourful and rich’, said L.Talat-Kelpša.

According to the Undersecretary of Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, prominent personalities from our science and culture bring Lithuania and Africa closer.

In the words of the author of the photos, E.Aukštakalnytė Hansen, she occupies herself with an educative activity when presenting the customs of an African tribe Maasai and the main goal of this exhibition is to promote public tolerance.

During the opening of the exhibition, fragments of a documentary film ‘The Maasai: Crossing the Centuries’, which is still in production by E.Aukštakalnytė Hansen were also presented. After the opening of the exhibition, an informal discussion with the author of the photos was organised.

Theater actress E.Aukštakalnytė Hansen left Lithuania in 1999, when her husband, a Danish businessman, had to move to distant countries due to his work. Together with her family, the author of the exhibition lived in Yekaterinburg (Russia), Moscow (Russia), Nairobi (Kenya) and Maputo (Mozambique). Currently E.Aukštakalnytė Hansen lives in Kenya.

The photos were made during her journeys through the Dark Continent. They reveal its exotic and sublime beauty. The Lithuanian author of the photographs has succeeded to gain the trust of the old inhabitants of the savannah, to observe and to record details of everyday life of local tribes, and their rites, which are rarely witnessed by an outsider.