Max Kamundi

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Abbasi Rafiki - the man behind the many designs in Tinga Tinga Tales

Abbasi Rafiki was born in Nakapanya in 1974. After finishing the primary school in his native village he went to Dar es Salaam to see his grandfather Hashim Bushiri Mruta. His grandfather is one of the most important figures in Tinga Tinga community. Mzee Mruta contributed to establishing of Tingatinga Cooperative (TACS) through his fund raising trip to Swiss and Denmark. Abbasi was quickly introduced to Tinga Tinga when he helped to his grandfather. On one occassion when he carried paintings to the House of Culture, he met sister Jean, a patron of Tanzanian art. She then employd Abbasi.

Sister Jean gave later a scholarship to Abbasi to study textile printing, weaving and English in South Africa in 1993. After coming back to Tanzania Abbasi worked in Tinga Tinga Cooperative. In 2008 he participated in a competition set up by Claudia Lloyd from Tiger Aspect Productions to find talents for illustrating the "Tinga Tinga Tales". He was chosen out of ca 80 Tinga Tinga painters for the animation job in Nairobi. Abbasi says:" I was very happy to learn that I got the job. I thought that it would help me in later carrier". And then he continues in Kiswahili:" Mimi naomba kutoa ujumbe kwa makampuni na watu binafsi watakaokupenda kushirikiana nasi kufanya kazi pamoja." (English: I would like to invite all people working in creative industry to work with us on more projects in future). Abbasi says also that he got new experience to mix different colors which will enrich the Tinga Tinga art work.

The painting are sized 75x75 cm and the cost is $650