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REINATA SADIMBA (Sadhimba) Passema, 1945

Reinata Sadimba was born in 1945 in the village of Nemu, Mozambique. Daughter of farmers she first received the traditional Makonde education that included making utilitary objects in clay.

Although the Makondes attribute the main part in society to women, in Mozambique, and also in Tanzania, sculpturing is still a "man's job". Maybe that is the reason why no one took Reinata Sadimba's art too seriously at first.

However, in 1975 she initiates a deep transformation in her ceramics becoming known worldwide by her "weird and fantastic forms". Reinata Sadimba is now considered one of the most important women artists of the entire African Continent. She has received several prizes, exhibited her work in Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal or Denmark and her work is represented in several institutions from the National Museum of Mozambique, to the portuguese Etnographic Museum or Culturgest's Modern Art Collection, and in numerous private collections around the world.

Reinata Sadimba at her studio

source: "Outras Plasticidades" (1999) - Instituto Camões; "Africa e Mediterraneo" Magazine (09/2002)