Maputo, July 21, 2025 (Lusa) - In the Chamanculo neighbourhood of Maputo, residents and artists have transformed the garden that once belonged to the Vulcano Football Club, located behind the Limetal shipyard, into the “Scrap Museum”, where scrap metal is transformed into art and an instrument of social transformation.

The space is known on social media as ‘SucArte Vulcano’, but visitors have nicknamed it the ‘Scrap Museum’, a place where scrap metal is recreated with creativity, inclusion and hope.

“It’s the name the people who come here gave it, and it stuck because it’s a museum,” Rui Paulino, 54, manager of Limetal and mentor of the project that “brings scrap to life,” tells Lusa.

The aim is ‘to show that there is life in scrap after transformation,’ says Rui, surrounded by various sculptures made from recycled metal, scattered throughout almost the entire yard of the “museum.”

At ‘SucArte’, several works are on display on the ground and in the trees, ranging from table football, tables, and chairs to animals and musical instruments. There are also sculptures inspired by the sea, such as seahorses and turtles, made from scrap metal collected or purchased locally.

The artistic and cultural space emerged “as a joke” around the year 2000, when Rui and his former mechanic welded small sculptures from unused parts, in a craft that the architect and entrepreneur inherited from his father, who founded the company in 1950.

Today, in addition to giving new life to scrap metal, Rui Paulino also dreams of improving the Vulcano Club, transforming it into a multi-sports facility that includes cycling, football and athletics.

‘The club is the driving force behind this project because it is an organisation of people; it is the responsibility of each person to ensure that things are done well. I think that the club makes this what it is (...) the idea is to set up something that never stops, a real sports club (...) to set up sports schools, a gym,’ says the entrepreneur enthusiastically.

The worksite transformed into a gallery that houses 90 people involved in the various activities of the project, most of whom are former and current athletes of the Vulcano Football Club, to the extent that the team’s equipment can be seen hanging on the clothesline at the back of the yard.

The “museum” is made from scrap cars, electrical appliances, office equipment, crockery, and every piece of metal you can imagine, including those from beverage production factories.

‘Bathtubs, pots, machines, engines, metal structures, anything that has already served its purpose and people discard because iron has a useful life, then becomes scrap, and we process all the scrap,’ he says, emphasising the challenges in obtaining raw materials.

The company also created the pieces from scrap purchased in small quantities at local markets; however, as supply conditions evolved, the company adjusted its strategy.

 “It created a lot of problems for us, so now we focus on serious contracts with large companies, and we also buy scrap from individuals, provided it is well organised,” he clarifies, also mentioning financial difficulties that have reduced the number of employees from 120 to 90.

The ambition remains firm: “to develop the community through the club and art”, also reflected in a building whose three floors, except for the base, are made of metal.

At the top of the building, which serves as the club’s social centre, a dragon made from recycled metal signals the “museum” from afar, and people use it as a landmark for the space, located in the suburbs of Maputo.

“My biggest dream is to be able to come here and see my athletes and my friends enjoying a club that works well,” says Rui, who has already opened a second gallery on Mao Tse Tung Avenue in Maputo, with pieces available to the public.

The Mozambican capital features metal sculptures scattered around various points, in addition to the Chamanculo cultural centre.

The entrepreneur highlights the emerging market for the works in Mozambique, a situation that is refocusing his dream of “developing the Chamanculo community” and Clube Vulcano through the life he gives to scrap metal.

"A club requires many services around it that we can transform into support for society and the community around us," says the manager, for whom ‘everything has value now’ and ‘scrap metal looks like gold.’

LN/ADB // ADB.

Lusa