NGZ alumni to showcase works at Hong Kong exhibiti...

NGZ alumni to showcase works at Hong Kong exhibition

Interview with Raphael Chikukwa, Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ) Harare - ICOM UK — Raphael Chikukwa

Audrey Galawu

Zimbabwean visual artists Wallen Mapondera and Terrence Musekiwa will showcase their works at the Art Basel Gallery at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from March 23 to 25.

Mapondera creates tapestries using cardboard boxes, a reference to the confines and shelters we build to host our bodies and souls.

His preferred medium of found materials are taken from spaces of happiness and then used to construct stories and ponder questions about personal lineage, spiritual freedom, and the quantification of the metaphysical.

National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe president Raphael Chikukwa said the Zimbabwe Pavilion Alumni continues to produce artists that can be on any global art stage.

“National Gallery of Zimbabwe is proud of these achievements and these two are not just Zimbabwe Pavilion Alumni but also National Gallery School of Visual Arts and Design Alumni.

“Zimbabwe's representation at the global stage is assured through these girls and boys. Many of these I saw as students at the art school and now I see them shining.

“To our Ministry, your continued support will continue to surprise the global art world with the work that these artists produce. let's celebrate their achievements together as Team Zimbabwe,” he said.

In 2022, Mapondera represented Zimbabwe at the Venice Biennale in 2022 in an exhibition curated by Fadzai Muchemwa that argued for the usefulness of bracing stories of resistance and survival.

He stacked hundreds of egg crates on top of each other to create a giant curved knot, Chisungo II, 2022, which alluded both to monumentality and to the conceptual use of everyday materials as explored by artists including El Anatsui and Ibrahim Mahama.