Reinata Sadimba (born 1945) is a Mozambican ceramicist who produces work that originates in traditional Makonde pottery, while incorporating her own techniques and conceptions of femininity and motherhood. She is considered among the most important contemporary sculptors in Mozambique. [1]
Reinata Sadimba was born in Nemu, a village in Mueda, Mozambique, in 1945. [2] [3] She received a traditional Makonde education, which included making useful objects out of clay. [3] She learned the art of ceramics from her mother, with the initial aim of providing for her family after her father died when she was very young. [2] [4] However, she eventually found that working with clay allowed her to "say things that I did not know how to express in any other way." [2]
As a young woman, Sadimba joined FRELIMO, an armed resistance movement to Portuguese rule in Mozambique that began in 1964. After the Mozambican War of Independence, the country gained independent status in 1975. [2]
Sadimba's work is marked by her own personal experiences. Married young and twice divorced, she had eight children, only one of whom survived. [2] After leaving an abusive marriage in 1975, Sadimba revolutionized her work, beginning to add personalized elements that distinguished her pieces from other Makonde ceramics. [5]
In the 1980s, she collaborated on a rural project with a Swiss couple who had settled close to Mueda, where she was living at the time. This project brought more visibility to her work. However, as the Mozambican Civil War raged, she emigrated in 1985 with her only son to Tanzania, where she lived in Dar es Salaam with her sister Josefina. It was there that she began to exhibit her work in small galleries and artisanal markets. [2]
The Swiss couple's continued support gave her the financial stability to experiment artistically with new techniques and sculpt according to her own aesthetic and imagination. During her time in Tanzania, she further developed her stylistic depiction of the human form, while still reflecting the Makonde matrilineal universe. [1] [2]
In 1992, after the war's end, she returned to Mozambique and settled in Maputo. There, she received significant support from Augusto Cabral, then the director of the Mozambique Natural History Museum , and she established a studio within the museum. In 1998, her work was featured during a weeklong educational program on traditional ceramics at the museum. [1] [5]
In her work, Sadimba uses clay as well as white limestone and graphite, which gives her pieces their characteristic green color. She creates jugs, pots, and anthropomorphic forms, which often display scarifications or cultural marks typical of the Makonde people. [2] Sadimba herself has a tattooed face, in keeping with Makonde tradition. [4] Her ceramics contain layers of meaning and make reference to stories and legends of her home province, often depicting femininity, motherhood, or childbirth. [2] [4] She is also known for producing pieces incredibly quickly. [5]
Sadimba's work has been exhibited both in Mozambique and abroad, including in South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, and France. [5] In 2022, she was named a Commander of the Order of Prince Henry by the president of Portugal. [6] [7]
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Africa to the southwest. The sovereign state is separated from the Comoros, Mayotte and Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo.
The Makonde are an ethnic group in southeast Tanzania, northern Mozambique, and Kenya. The Makonde developed their culture on the Mueda Plateau in Mozambique. At present they live throughout Tanzania and Mozambique, and have a small presence in Kenya. The Makonde population in Tanzania was estimated in 2001 to be 1,140,000, and the 1997 census in Mozambique put the Makonde population in that country at 233,358, for an estimated total of 1,373,358. The ethnic group is roughly divided by the Ruvuma River; members of the group in Tanzania are referred to as the Makonde, and those in Mozambique as the Maconde. The two groups have developed separate languages over time but share a common origin and culture.
Pemba is a port city and district in Mozambique. It is the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado and lies on a peninsula in Pemba Bay.
Mueda is the largest town of the Makonde Plateau in northeastern Mozambique. It is the capital of the Mueda District in Cabo Delgado Province. It is the center of the culture of the Makondes, and the production of their ebony sculptures.
The Niassa Company or Nyassa Chartered Company was a royal company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, then known as Portuguese East Africa, that had the concession of the lands that include the present provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa between 1891 and 1929.
Mikindani is a historic coastal town located in Mtwara-Mikindani District of Mtwara Region in Tanzania. The name comes from the Swahili word mikinda which means "young coconut trees". Therefore the term "Mikindani', literally means "the place where there are young coconut trees" in old Swahili language. Mikindani is part of the city of Mtwara and is governed by the Mtwara Mikindani Municipal Council. The site is a registered National Historic Site.
George Lilanga was a Tanzanian painter and sculptor, active from the late 1970s and until the early 21st century. He belonged to the Makonde people and lived most of his life in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania.
The culture of Mozambique is in large part derived from its history of Bantu, Swahili, and Portuguese rule, and has expanded since independence in 1975. The majority of its inhabitants are black Africans. Its main language is Portuguese. Its median religion is Roman Catholicism, but only about 40% of the inhabitants are Christian. It has a rich history in the areas of arts, cuisine, and entertainment.
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi is a Mozambican politician serving as the fourth President of Mozambique since 2015. He is the current leader of FRELIMO, the party that has governed Mozambique since its independence from Portugal in 1975. Additionally, he has served as the Chairman of the Southern African Development Community since August 2020.
Josina Abiathar Muthemba Machel was a leader of FRELIMO and a significant figure in the struggle for independence in Mozambique.
The Southern Zanzibar–Inhambane coastal forest mosaic, also known as the Southern Swahili coastal forests and woodlands, is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion of eastern Africa. It is a southern variation of Northern Zanzibar-Inhambane coastal forest mosaic. The ecoregion supports habitats of forest, savanna and swamps. The southern portion of the ecoregion is not as well studied due to the 1977-1992 civil war in Mozambique.
Alberto Mabungulane Chissano was a Mozambican sculptor best known for his work using indigenous woods, and sculptures in rock, stone and iron. He is considered to be one of Mozambique's most important and influential artists, together with the painter Malangatana Ngwenya.
Makonde chess sets are made by the Makonde tribe of south-west Tanzania and Mozambique who have for centuries been greatly skilled in wood carving and Makonde art is a distinctive style. Chess sets were originally made for export to Europe but the pattern of the pieces follows traditional Makonde designs rather than any established chess pattern.
The name Makonde art refers to East African sculptures or, less frequently, to modern paintings created by craftspeople or artists belonging to the Makonde people of northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania, separated by the Ruvuma river. Art historians, dealers and collectors have created this genre of African art, that can be subdivided into African traditional artifacts or modern artistic works. This genre can be traced back to the 1930s, when the first documented exhibition of Makonde art was held at the Centro Cultural dos Novos in Mozambique.
The insurgency in Cabo Delgado is an ongoing Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique, mainly fought between militant Islamists and jihadists attempting to establish an Islamic state in the region, and Mozambican security forces. Civilians have been the main targets of terrorist attacks by Islamist militants. The main insurgent faction is Ansar al-Sunna, a native extremist faction with tenuous international connections. From mid-2018, the Islamic State's Central Africa Province has allegedly become active in northern Mozambique as well, and claimed its first attack against Mozambican security forces in June 2019. In addition, bandits have exploited the rebellion to carry out raids. As of 2020, the insurgency intensified, as in the first half of 2020 there were nearly as many attacks carried out as in the whole of 2019.
Operation Eagle was the first organised operation of the Portuguese Armed Forces in response to the attack of the FRELIMO guerrilla group, on 25 September 1964, to the administrative post of Chai, in the district of Cabo Delgado, materialising therefore in the first operation in the one of Portuguese Colonial War in the theatre of operations of Mozambique.
The Mueda Plateau, also known as the Maconde Plateau, is a plateau in Cabo Delgado Province of northeastern Mozambique.
Kukuli Velarde is a Peruvian artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She specializes in painting and ceramic sculptures made out of clay and terra-cotta. Velarde focuses on the themes of gender and the repercussions of colonization on Latin American history, with a particular interest in Peru. Her ceramics consist of unusual body positions, childlike faces, and works that have been molded from her own face as well.
Fátima Langa was a Mozambican writer, primarily of stories for young readers, which drew on her childhood in southeastern Mozambique. She was the founder of the publishing house Editora Mulheres e Jovens Moçambicanos.
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