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Senior Arts Reporter
First Floor Gallery Harare has opened a virtual exhibition to showcase artwork by a South African and Zimbabwean trio.
Titled “In Flux” the showcase was brought together by joint efforts from Creative Avenue, Husikisiki Studio and British Council.
The exhibition is the culmination and eponym of the three month In Flux digital artist residency run by Creative Avenue, a youth creative collective based in Zimbabwe.
It marks Creative Avenue’s Thandi Gula-Ndebele and Buhlebenkosi Chinhara’s first curatorial effort.
In an interview, First Floor Gallery marketing director Marcus Gora said the exhibition was developed using online tools.
“The residency brought together three emerging artists from Southern Africa — Audrey Dananai Butau (Zimbabwe), Haneem Christian (South Africa), and Saadiq “Shiraz” Soeker (South Africa) — and in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, the three worked collaboratively online to develop their respective artistic praxis, and bring to life this digital exhibition,” said Gora.
He said during the residency, artists were tasked with engaging concepts of continuous change, temporarily, and transformation — the idea of “flux”.
“With the support of three artistic mentors (Queezy (SA), Tyra Naidoo (SA), Zanele Anne Mutema (Zimbabwe) and an emotional alchemist (Barbara Kamba Nyathi (Zimbabwe), the artists were able to make use of visual mediums (photography, sculpture and video) to take an intimate look at legacy and engage with memory and lineage,” said Gora.
“Recognising who the artists are as intersections of the future and past, this work is grounded in agency; in the importance of young black and brown voices deciding what is important for themselves to remember from the past, preserve from the present and project into the future.”
The exhibition is currently running until September 4, while walk-ins for the screening room are welcome between 11am-3pm from Monday to Saturday.
Online Reporter