There are women who just inspire us, and Indira is one of them. Her je ne sais quoi filled with freedom, creativity and bohemia make her an example for many inveterate feminists and other people.

We were able to find out more about her very successfull journey in Angola and elsewhere.

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© Indira Grandê

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Indira Soraia Paiva dos Santos, also and better known as Indira Grandê, is an artist, singer, poet and Angolan writer. She was born on 9 March 1992 in Benguela.

She holds a degree in Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Lisbon, and studied design at IADE Creative University, having spent her childhood in Portugal in a village in Monte Redondo (Leiria).

She has wrotten three chronicles at Jornal de Angola “A cidade dos porquês” (The city of whys), ‘’Um ataque pessoal a Camões’’ (A Personal Attack on Camoes), and “Por Benguela Acácia e prá Benguela Morena” (For Benguela Acacia and to Benguela Morena).

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© Indira Grandê

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Currently she collaborates with the Critical and Documentation of Post-Colonial and Transatlantic Issues Portal: BUALA. ‘’Desburocratizar Angola’’ (De-bureaucratizing Angola), “O Obituário” (The Obituary), “DANGEREUX, um bairro de nome (quase) francês” (Dumbireux, a neighborhood with a name (almost) French), “Catumbela das Conchas” (Catumbela of shells), “Cine Nimas 500” are some of the chronicles that will be part of her first literary work.

She began writing at the age of six, encouraged by children’s books, cinema, theater, and the Ambulant Libraries of Monte Redondo’s School Center in Leiria. She took her first steps in music at the high school karaoke contest, where she was placed first, representing  Dr. Luis Pereira da Costa College in the final contest.

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© Indira Grandê | Cinema Nimas

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In 2007, she returned to Angola to her hometown, Benguela, where she finished high school. She lived for 6 years in a cinema in Lobito, “Cine Nimas 500”. Her artistic and humanistic sensibility comes from her mother Lisete Paiva, who at the time worked at the United Nations and brought her to know the “guts” of southern Angola. During this period she sang covers in bars, restaurants and hotels in Lobito and Benguela.

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She was a basketball player from Casa Pessoal do Porto do Lobito, having participated in two national championships in Huambo and Lubango.

In 2018, Indira Grandê was invited to the exhibition of the Portuguese artist Rita GT, with the project “Escola ao lado”.

She participated in the collective exhibition Fuckin ‘Globo, in December 2018, in Luanda, organized by the artist Kiluanji Kia Henda and Thó Simões. In room 115 “O Neonato” (The newborn) Indira explores the narrative of the woman, the mother and the artist with performance, installation, poetry and music.

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© Indira Grandê

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Indira Grandê