BIRTH VALUES PLACE

It was inspired by Guiyani's personal journey of birth, values and place.

These love letters are a dedication to heritage - her mother is Chopi, an ethnic group that settled in southern Mozambique, to society and ideals she longs for, and lastly to the city where she was born, Maputo.

The red beads connects all designs and signifies bloodline, energy and primal life forces.

SIMBINE MABOTE ZULU

I get on my tippy toes and look up, way up high, to see you,

vovô. Iampartofyouandofallwho came before you.

As I grow so does my connection to you, to our story, to how we came to inhabit the land we are from and the clan name that we proudly and loudly belong to, Simbine Mabote Zulu.

I look up, way up high, to see you, vovô

The triangle represents a little girl.
She is connected to the image of her ancestors by a blood line.

CATARINA

"...A spiral is a movement around and beyond a circle, always returning to itself, but never at excatly the same place." - The Wise Woman Tradition is a Spiral by Susun Weed.

Mamã.

Even when our spirals are in opposition we eventually find home in each other. I’m truly blessed to be your daughter.

You have taught me love, humility, generosity, and the power of laughter.
I love you.

The spiral symbolizes female energy, fertility, and womb. It also represents constant change in women's life.
The colours red, blue, gold and green collectively represent bloodline, trust, compassion, love and growth.

TIMBILA, MY HEARTBEAT

When I close my eyes and listen I'm transported to a familiar place, one I have never been to physically but one I know well. A conversation with my ancestors, a dance lifting the sand as my bare-feet touch the ground. I'm a little girl glowing from the hot sun on my skin, happy and filled with life.

My heart is in sync with the beat. My heartbeat.

The Timbila is a wooden xylophone played by the Chopi people. They are made from the highly resonant wood of the slow-growing mwenje tree and shells of the masala apple. Their orchestras consist of five to thirty timbilas of varying sizes and ranges of pitch and it is complemented by singing and dancing by a group of two to twelve. The Timbila is a UNESCO Intagible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

GUILUNDO, FROM MEMORY

I haven't been back to my mother's birth village since I was very young so I hold a collection of memories from different trips.

Bathing below the sunrise, taking slow walks, sitting on an esteira (straw mat) in the shade of a Mafura tree, picking pumpkin or cassava leaves from the machamba (cultivated fields) for dinner.

Watching my mother mix sugar and mafura, making her favourite treat, whether we are in Guilundo or not, always feels like the end of the perfect day there.

The Mafura tree grows in Southern Africa. It births a beautiful red toned pear shaped fruit. Guiyani's family brought a cutting from Guilundo to their home in Maputo where it stands tall and full of life.

MAP.UTO
It's hard to describe my love for

this city, it’s easier to feel it.

I was born in Maputo but have lived away from it for most of my life but I don’t fall in the trap of defining my relationship with it through my geographical

location.

I don’t feel the distance - I keep its costal motion and pace in me, wherever I may be. I share its warmth and morning greeting to every passerby, just as she taught me. I feel its grid-like streets and rhythmic architecture as I navigate through life. I keep the memories of places and neighbourhoods from my childhood, many things now changed by time and development.