While attending a photography course at the Monitor International School, Maputo, in the late 1990s, Mauro Pinto was introduced to and would later learn under the guidance of photographers José Machado and Ricardo Rangel. In 2009, his work was included in Maputo: A Tale of One City, curated by the Oslo Museum in Oslo, Norway, which toured additional Norwegian cities for a year thereafter. During this time, Mauro initiated the project Karl Marx 1834, in collaboration with sculptor Gonçalo Mabunda and criminal justice lawyer Tina Lorizzo. The project saw a local house transformed to host several exhibitions by Mozambican and international artists.

Selected exhibitions include As Margens dos Mares, Sesc Pinheiros, São Paulo (2015); Present Tense: Photos from the South of Africa, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2013) and Cheveux Chéris – Frivolités et Trophées, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (2012). The subject of several awards, his series DáLicença (Excuse Me), developed in Maputo’s bustling Mafalala quarter, received the BES Photo award in 2012.