Ídasse

A founding voice of the Charrua movement

Ídasse Ekson Tembe Malendza was born in Vale de Infulene, Maputo, on 1 July 1955. He works across drawing, painting, ceramics and sculpture. In 1979 he completed the Cultural Animator course at the Centro de Estudos Culturais under the guidance of Malangatana and Domingos Manhiça, training in anthropology, modern and African art history, music, photography, theatre, painting, ceramics, drawing and linocut. Under the supervision of António Quadros he completed the Graphic Communication course. He first showed his work in a collective exhibition at the Maputo International Trade Fair (FACIM) in 1977, and frequented the studio of Inácio Matsinhe.

He worked at the National Film Institute, where he founded its Art Department. In 1984 he became a founding member of the Charrua movement — the legendary magazine of the Mozambican Writers' Association whose illustrations he created, alongside the writers Eduardo White, Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa and Hélder Muteia. He is a member of the Núcleo de Arte, the Mozambican Photography Association, the Association of Mozambican Writers and the founding collective Habitantes do Desenho. Over his career he has taken part in more than one hundred exhibitions, served on juries and curated several shows — notably Habitantes do Desenho at the Maputo International Biennial (Centro Cultural Português, December 2020). His work is held in collections in Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, France, Portugal, Spain, the United States, Italy, Denmark, Japan, Austria, Sweden and Brazil.

His first solo exhibition of drawings took place in 1986, at the Mozambican Writers' Association, followed by shows in Inhambane (1986), Maputo (1987) and, in the Paris region, Malakoff (1988) and Arcueil (1990); in 1990 his work also toured the United Kingdom in Art from the Frontline, and in 2001 he held the solo exhibition Assombramentos at Perve Galeria, Lisbon. His drawing earned him the First Prize at the National Art Museum's Annual Exhibition (1991), the Second Prize at the TDM Biennale (1995) and First Prizes at MUSART-TDM in 1997 and 1998. Since its opening in 1989, works by Ídasse have been part of the permanent exhibition of the National Art Museum in Maputo, alongside Malangatana, Alberto Chissano, Bertina Lopes and Reinata Sadimba. Art historian Alda Costa cites him among the defining figures of drawing in Mozambique, in the same breath as Malangatana and Shikhani; in 2013 he co-curated, with Famós, the first Habitantes do Desenho exhibition at the Camões — Centro Cultural Português in Maputo.