Logging in and out of collectivity

The exhibition Zig Zag Zim found its roots in the artists’ residency project that took place in 2015 between the Catinca Tabacaru Gallery of New York City and Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions of Harare. This was a result of conversations which started at the 2013 La Biennale di Venezia between Catinca Tabacaru and Raphael Chikukwa of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.

Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions (DAI) is 25 kilometres outside the centre of Harare along the Harare – Bulawayo road. Founded by Chikonzero Chazunguza, DAI is a space where artists have the freedom and support to make work, where feedback and dialogue is plentiful, and where artists can commune with nature and its spirits. These qualities were perfect as a platform for an Artists Residency where international and local artists would live and work together for one month. The resulting relationship explained boundaries between tradition and contemporariness, foreign and local, black and white, and the title of the exhibition: ZIG ZAG ZIM.

The exhibition which culminated from the residency was mainly video, installations, photography, sculpture and intricate pencil drawings. It features work by some of the artists who participated in the residency project; Admire Kamudzengerere, Terrence Musekiwa, Gareth Nyandoro, Franklyn Dzingai, Happiness Kamudzengerere, Option Nyahunzvi, Moffat Takadiwa, Mavis Tauzeni and Sabina Mutsvati, Rachel Monosov from Israel, Xavier Robles de Medina from Surinam and Justin Orvis Steimer from USA.  

Two major collaborations were conceived during the residency and continue to evolve to date: Admire Kamudzengerere’s Paper Project and Rachel Monosov’s Pink Village. Each involved participation and contributions from most of the artists in residency, and are currently evolving and growing in size and effect. Kamudzengerere’s Paper project developed during the residency is an installation and performance all at once and occupies space, its presence disturbs the landscape, and eventually closes the gap with which the artists began. In its new incarnation, the paper became a sculpture upon the landscape. Kamudzengerere’s practice of acting without necessarily knowing the outcome spilled into the work by the other artists especially Justin Orvis Steimer’s Vishavi and Option Nyahunzvi’s untitled triptych speaking to their connectivity to the energy of the time and space. These works depict the residency in an abstract vocabulary – its activities, its people, the different nooks and crannies of the Dzimbanhete compound.