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Stephen Garan’anga Own Correspondent
The world over, for time immemorial, people of female gender have to overcome outstanding challenges to establish themselves and gain due recognition. Even today in many traditions they still have to play second fiddle to their male counterparts like wives being submissive to their husbands, boy child having preferential treatment at the expense of the girl sibling, males getting more on the market than the females and so on.
There has been a huge public outcry over utterances made on the international tennis arena that the female players should be thankful to their male counterparts for popularising the sport and having their earnings at par with them for the various tournaments.
Recently as well the United States of America’s female soccer team had to write a petition over their little earnings as compared to their male colleagues’ whilst it is proven that they generated more revenue and attendances to their matches than the men. After all they have been more successful on the international arena winning trophies including the world cup, a feat their male colleagues have not or may not achieve.
These are only a few of the genuine injustices people of female gender put up with daily somewhere in the world. Here in Africa the struggles of the female gender are insurmountable considering the numerous roles and tasks they perform in society.
The current art exhibition themed “What About Us”, an all-female affair which opened recently at Gallery Delta Foundation for Art and the Humanities gives a voice to women artists in Zimbabwe, permitting them to reflect on their daily environmental situations.
The multi-media show brings together practitioners at various levels of their careers from the promising young and upcoming to the established seniors. Whilst women are often marginalized and underprivileged here, the show is not meant to be a feminist statement according to senior participant and co-founder of the Gallery Helen Lieros.
She said there is the valid argument that if a woman is good in what she practices she will find a way to excel. “I have always maintained that a woman rises by her own determination, motivation, stamina and initiative” she expressed.
The exhibition also provided an opportunity for the young female artists to be challenged to create work to show and be encouraged by the feat archived by their participating established colleagues.
The participants include senior practitioners Berry Bickle, Kate Raath and Marjorie Wallace, established SeminaMpofu, Portia Zvavahera, Virginia Chihota, Goergina Maxim, KresiahMukwazhi, Tracey Hunt, the emerging voices Nyasha Chigama, Charity Mafukidze, Lillian Magodi and Janet Siringwani.
The works in the show vary from painting, mixed media sculpture, graphics, ceramics and three dimensional found objects. Kresiah Mukwazhi like before continues to enjoy fiddling with the softness of the women’s bras collecting countless of them, stripping off the strips, interweaving them better than the weaver bird and needle together the bra cups making various forms in her “Mazai Neni” appearing like a fishnet installation. Kresiah says she was tackling the “What About Us” theme as a question from the view point of female commercial sex workers.
Locally in their line of business they are not allowed to negotiate fairly for anything and in society they are a disgrace. No one wants their children, family or friends around them or even hear of their grievances. Their children and any of their relations are looked at with a scorned eye.
The huge net really looks used up hanging loosely for meters haphazardly from the floor almost to the ceiling with numerous escaping holes.
Colourful bra cup forms too hang down to confinement and off a box lying on the floor like real fishnet floaters with a few long strips following them to sum-up the gorgeous creativity. One wonders how and where she gathers the bras and the time she does the stripping before embarking on the final piece.
Tough nut veteran sculptor Semina Mpofu still thrives on chipping away at stone and wood. She gave a fairly sized log of hard wood a new lease of life sanding it all over, destroying all edges and revealing various natural browns of aged grain marks before digging concavely two thirds across and down into it.
She then carved smoothly a round piece of black serpentine stone of similar height as the wood but fitting into the dip.
She drilled three holes about ten centimetres in diameter at equal distances apart along the height of the stone before inserting and sticking thorn-like carved pieces of similar rock about thirty centimetres long in a work titled “Musical Instrument”. She also has “Kutumbuka – Blossom” which too is a mixture of ragged hardwood and smoothened small fragments of black polished rock.
Georgina Maxim produces remarkable pieces of creativity with textiles and found objects mostly of household utensils. In “Label It”, making a fashion statement she dressed a one and a half meter high isle in an old fashioned lime-green dress and stuck numerous fashion labels all over it.
She as well has “Lulu”, “Licorice” and “Accessories” in textile and utensils. Other pieces of the show include paintings “Ndezvimwewo I and II” and “We Are Covered” by Portia Zvavahera, triple photographic prints of “Cassandra Files” by Berry Bickle, serigraphs “KwandinodaNdokuziva” and “Ndakumbira Chokwadi Chandinoziva” by Virginia Chihota, Tracey Hunt has mixed media work with titles “Redemption”, “Shame”, “Betrayal”, “Cooperation”, “Knock Knock I and II”. Helen Lieros has “The Red String I & II”, “Stolen History” and “African Caryatides” to highlight a few.
The exhibition at 110 Livingston Avenue, Harare will come down at the summit of May 2016.
Online Reporter