It’s hard to label a creative as Rui Tenreiro, in his life, even if still young, he has covered a myriad of roles, all concerning the artistic sphere.
Born in 1992 in Mozambique, in a complex historical period, the civil war had recently ended in a context in which it seemed impossible to emerge and above all to envisage a career in art or music.

During his career he worked as an illustrator, writer, publisher, puppeteer, director and animator. As we were saying, it’s difficult to define him even if after all he sees himself more as artistic director, the first role he held when he left Mozambique to work in South Africa.

Recently his attention has focused more on his country and not on Europe, where, according to the artist, it is easier to emerge and there are many possibilities for an artist to be commissioned.
For example in Tanzania, he explains, there is a niche comic scene called “katuni” with a local production that started in the 1970s. “They created a cast of characters, and a very specific set of stories, about status and women, cars and wealth.”

Rui Tenreiro has focused on the enormous creative potential present in Africa, in fact he recently designed a 10-page comic book. Published by McSweeney’s magazine, the focus is entirely on the war in Syria.
For this work he took inspiration from Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 feature film “Le ballon rouge”. He initially thought of a tribute with the red balloon floating over the war-torn areas, then he turned to the addition of a soccer ball because in his opinion it is a positive symbol, full of hope.

What came out, without too many words, is a disturbing mix of calm and chaos, piles of rubble and buildings collapsed on themselves. “The photos of Syria are just crazy,” says Rui, “you can’t look away”.
When he started this work, he had no message in mind. He just thought it would be interesting to let readers know about the current situation, which is usually very difficult to do in a magazine that doesn’t usually go into such topics.