Cape Verde is unity and diversity. It is the site of the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, of the continents, of civilizations.
It is geographic diversity, of colors, where the blue of the sea and the sky contrast with the brown of the land and mountains, as well as the green valleys. There is also the famous blue feather and red beak bird: the beautiful Halcyon Leucocephala, a kingfisher who lives without rivers.
Cape Verde was the center of the modern world. The place where Portugal and Spain discovered the secrets of the South Seas, lurking in the Americas, and which allowed the division of the world in two: the famous Treaty of Tordesillas, in 1494.
It is the place where the Malian emperor Mansa Kanku Musa, the richest man in the world, in the 14th century, passed with his hundreds of vessels to the Americas, before Columbus, with the help of L'Harmattan (trade winds).
Cape Verde provides discoveries, tranquility, colors, energy, beauty, creativity, music, flavors, peace, allowing the traveler to have the feeling that he is in the footsteps of the oldest continent (Africa), the Americas and if you look up you can see the Europe. In Cape Verde, secrets are discovered that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Nardi de Sousa
Sociologist
Iyomi Ashira - the designer
Iyomi Ashira is a pseudonym of Katya Modesto, a Cape Verdean native of Santiago Island. The pseudonym is a mixture of two characters that marked me a lot in my teens. Iyomi, a character in the book “Daughters of the Moon”, where she read people's minds, tried to understand them before making any judgment. Ashira comes from Ashira Olatunde, a Nigerian artist who pioneered African masks.
Although I took a vocational test at the age of 17, which showed my vocation for the arts, I preferred to venture into the scientific world. I studied 3 years of Civil Engineering at FCT - Faculty of Science and Technology, Caparica campus, Portugal. I hated it and ended up giving up on the course and returning to Cape Verde.
I worked for a year in a Design company and discovered a new world. I gained a huge motivation for this area and the more I researched and knew, the more I wanted to be part of that world.
Today I am graduated in Design, at the University Institute of Art, Technology and Culture (M_EIA), in Mindelo, São Vicente Island, Cape Verde.
I was a winner of the RENDA contest - National Handicraft Distribution Network, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Cape Verde in 2014.
https://www.pinterest.pt/kmodestoh/iyomi-ashira-draw | https://www.instagram.com/iyomi_ashira/