Unravelling threads of colonised craft

expatriate NGO representative, Ilse Noy.
I met Ilse Noy in 1989, at the Weya Art Community and Training Centre, situated approximately 170km outside Harare, off the Marondera Highway, near Chiendambuya. 
Already then this writer was critical of the mass-produced crafts, which included appliqué, embroidery, tapestry, sadza paintings, and patchwork quilt- making being defined as visual art, the bulk of work being sent to Europe and America to generate revenue for the community of women.
Several indigenous women based in the Weya Art Community are showing their quilted, darned and crocheted patchwork wall hangings, which are essentially a craft, erroneously displayed in our national institution of contemporary arts — the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. The aesthetic problems of such craft work are highlighted in the anonymity of the creators, lack of concept development and technical naivete of the various artists taking part in this show.
The problems of such mass-produced crafts is that they perpetuate and re-enforce Western constructed stereo-types of what African art should be — as perceived by them, and replicates, a pattern of neo-colonial cultural condescension, a trait that can be seen throughout colonised and apartheid Africa. 
Similar examples of such cultural exploitation by transient colonial expatriate opportunists and missionaries  can be seen at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Centre’s Rockesdrift African Art and Craft Centre in Natal, South Africa, established in the early 1960s, was initiated by the missionaries of the Church of Sweden, who produced a plethora of woodcuts and linocuts by disadvantaged and underprivileged indigenous peoples. Other similar examples of this exploitation can be found throughout Africa, Aboriginal Papunya of Australia, Makonde of Mozambique and Tanzania, Tinga Tinga of Tanzania.
Unfortunately, once devoid of a personality and signature, the work has no individuality and the artists’ potential can never be fully realised, nor do the artists break away from the monotonous and repetitive craft prescription. Once the novelty of Weya has worn out, it becomes a time capsule of expressions, belonging to a particular transient history of NGOs and donor-initiated craft, whose tenure usually expires within three years. It is disheartening to note that the context and meaning of these wall hangings has not developed nor changed over time, neither has the craft improved the general standard of living of these women of Marondera.
The initial surge of patriotic optimism envisaged by Ilse and her ilk has frizzled to the annals of history. It is also disconcerting to note that none of the artists aspired to overcome or supersede the limitations of the craft they were taught by their masters.
On viewing these crafts, and their prescribed donor topics of stranded commuters, transport problems, domestic exploitation, maize pounders, truck drivers, HIV and Aids, women oppression, water shortages, all threaded in colourful stories are hackneyed images of Western images of downtrodden Africans.
l Where in these imagery is the empowered African woman?
l Where is the rich culture of Zimbabwe reflected?
l Who are the patrons of such work?  Zimbabweans or foreigners?
l Why the urge to harp on and perpetuate gender victimisation and other social ills? 
The exhibition “Visiting and Re-Visiting Weya Art”, curated  by Raphael Chikukwa does not make for a renewal of the potential of the media.
In fact, what lingers and resonates beyond the poor patchwork and stupefying hum of consciousness-raising should be relegated to the craft market where it belongs.
Apart from the absence of comprehensive biographies, and critical synopsis of the exhibition’s intentions, the works by Leticia Mukanyanyemba, Ceresencia Chibaya, Ednight Mugure, Albertina Nyamagoronga, Iren Mutanga, Lynette Mukwena, Faina Shonge, Rachel Feremba, and finally Irene Karunga, who can be singled out for her furniture piece, informs and entrenches simplistic Western ideas about indigenous art production without questioning the ideological positions of the discipline itself.
Can these Weya artists ever be investigated or critiqued as articulate, modern African women artists?  See the exhibition for a clearer perspective of artistic anonymity.

l Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Post-Modern Art Theory and a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) in Post-Colonial Art and Heritage Studies.  He is also a practising artist, designer, art critic and corporate image consultant.