Biographical notes of Muenda

Once upon a time, a young man from Sofala, named Manuel Gonçalves, and a young woman, named Cecília from Zambézia on account of the destiny they met, dated, and got married. Two years later she got pregnant and gave birth on May 4, 1995, a girl who was given the name of Tatiana Napido Gonçalves.

Seven months later, because of work, Manuel and Cecília went to live in Germany. When Tatiana was one year old, they enrolled her in a French nursery in Germany.

At that time, in Germany the family lived in the concept of parents and children, without much social living. This was good for Tatiana’s childhood, for it helped preserve and keep what her parents taught.

Once Cecilia decided to take a course in fabric painting, she was going with little Tatiana to the place and to keep her from bothering, her mother would carry a little paint and a little apron, and let her entertain herself with the painting as she took the course. She did so, too, when they were at home, when she was making batiques to sell to Africans residing in Germany.

At three in the nursery, Tatiana painted her first painting. The nursery teachers were amazed and talked to their parents. They said that Tatiana was a different child, surprised them with that illustration, handed the picture and asked the parents to keep it with affection, because it was a special design.

The mother understood that the drawing had become special because it was made by an African and in those countries do not expect a great intelligence from African children, but they took the picture and put it away. They had little idea that an artist was born.

The following year they returned to Mozambique, It was 1999. Little Tatiana did primary school in Maputo and in 2005, she discovered the talent for writing poetry.

In her father’s work, there was a Children’s Day event, June 1. The ceremony had a space to declaim poetry. Tatiana decided to write, and when she read the people were amazed. She felt motivated to write and she did it often.

Muenda

Tatiana wrote deep things about love. One day, for mother’s surprise, she found the journal with the poems, she got astonished and could not believe it. She thought that her daughter had got out of her control, and that she had missed something in education, she kept the journal where she had found it and waited a good moment to talk.

Days later, she approached her to talk about it. Tatiana revealed her secret, but it was difficult for the mother to accept the message. So, Cecília talked to several people who understood poetry. They explained to the mother that it was nothing of what she thought. That was art. So the parents encouraged their daughter to continue writing.

The practice of sports also took part in her evolution in writing. Tatiana practiced the Tang Soo Do,for three years (2007-2010). The experience was and remains very important for your walk, with the Tang Soo Do, in addition to the martial art, she learned to achieve inner peace through meditation, and she began to use meditation to gain inspiration.

After completing secondary education at Francisco Manyanga Secondary School, Tatiana followed in 2010 to Kenya. In that country she went to live with her father, who was on a service mission in the capital Nairobi. The idea was to do high school in Nairobi, and so it was. Tatiana joined the Saints Austin’s Academy in Nairobi.

That school was instrumental in the development of Tatiana’s abilities.  Well, the artist had a discipline called Fine Arts, which contributed a lot to re-painting pictures, this time using the technique, after an interruption of approximately 10 years.

It was thought then, that Tatiana’s first public appearance in the arts would be as a plastic artist, but it was not. In August 2013, Tatiana returned to Mozambique to launch her first book, and the title of the work was: “Maravilhas da Alma”, and she decided to present herself as Muenda. Her stage name was inspired by her grandmother’s name.

The book was launched on August 23, containing 32 poems, 11 of which were written in English and the others in Portuguese. She wrote in English because after she went to live in Kenya and learned English, inspiration came in English, and if she translated, she would lose the impact.

Pub.

“Maravilhas da Alma” because soul (in the poetic sense) is a “box” where reside several feelings that can be considered a wonder, depending on the point of view of each one.

“Maravilhas da Alma” speaks about love because Muenda, at the age of 18, understood that it was a feeling that people should value. In her view, we focus on the love of certainty there will be not conflicts in the world. What it brings intrigues, she thought: they are petty things that generate hatred and this, in turn, it brings conflict. But if we let love be stronger than petty things there will be not war and we will live in harmony.

500 copies were printed. That day, half were sold and the other part went on sale on the shelves of Ethiopia and Kenya. The value from the sale of the book was used for his studies. The talent of the girl was always accompanied by her school career.

The trip to Nairobi not only contributed to the development of plastic art, because Muenda arrived there enrolled in a music school and later integrated as a guitarist in the band of Austin’s Academy, where she had the opportunity to play in some events of that school. Still in Nairobi, Muenda studied dance in three months, where she learned to waltz and salsa.

In Kenya, during the three years, she lived in an environment where adolescents self-pressured their studies. It was as if everyone was competing. In fact they were competing because at the end of the year the best students were awarded scholarships for all academic life inside or outside the country, and all students struggled hard to become better. So they were all very closed and stayed inside the houses to study. The habit of reading was visible. The people they walked with carried a book and when they were, for example, waiting in line or on the public bus, they leafed and read.

When she finished high school in Kenya, she went to study in the United Kingdom. In Birmingham, she went on to graduate in Architecture, the formation of her dreams.

In July of 2015, she returned to Mozambique to launch her second book of poetry, “Alma Inquieta”, and her first exhibition of paintings entitled “Além da Realidade”. The event took place in the former Library of BCI Joaquim Chissano, in the Maputo city. It was a launch that featured the full room. Muenda introduced herself for the first time as a plastic artist. She was no longer just a poet. She was a poet and visual artist.

Second Book Launching Ceremony

The theme “Além da Realidade” was actually an invitation that Muenda made to get people to see the message behind the images they saw in each picture. She wanted people when they looked at her pictures not to see only the image that was there, but to try to find out what message she was transmitting. The paintings made by Muenda are characterized by vivid colors laden with messages that inspired peace, harmony and joy.

Painting for Muenda is power. When she paints, she feels in a world of her own, a relaxing place where there is nothing that disturbs her. At last, it is lost in her paintings. The people like that because it’s a world where can control everything, and the nature of the human being is to look for a place where she can have everything under her control, and it’s in the art world where sh gets it.

Muenda saw that out of art, the human being controls to a certain extent and other things happen because society determines this. There are many factors around us that cause a certain event, but in painting not – everything depends on it.