ABSTRACT

This chapter examines artworks depicting the Mausoleum of Angolan President Agostinho Neto by South African photographer Jo Ractliffe and Angolan writer Ondjaki. It argues that their representations of the Mausoleum chart how ideological disorientation – caused by the MPLA’s turn from socialism to petro-capitalism – intersects with renewed processes of postwar urban struggle against gentrification, shedding light on the continuing impact of colonial and Cold War violence, while also creating space for recovering aspects of a revolutionary legacy.