adminTHE Zimbabwe Pavilion contains the work of Virginia Chihota, Portia Zvavahera and Rashid Jogee on its walls. Installations by Vhoti Thebe and Michele Mathison occupy the remaining space in the Santa Maria della Pieta, a grand old church in Venice. That makes it a perfect place to answer questions set by the theme, “Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs”.
There is an additional artist present at the Zimbabwe Pavilion, a Franco-Danish conceptual artist who goes by the name of Thierry Geoffroy.
The Colonel, as he is commonly addressed, is at the Zimbabwe Pavilion using the platform of the “Mobile Emergency Room” to address matters such as climate change and global conflict by giving space to artists to use this “Mobile Emergency Room” to express their views.
The artist is part of The Maldives Pavilion, the situation in that country being the source of the need for urgent response.
The Maldives are a group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are at sea level and due to global warming, are at risk of being fully engulfed by the sea.
The format of the “Mobile Emergency Room” is developed from the artist’s “Emergency Room” concept which employs artists to debate on necessary issues before they become irrelevant.
This space gives opportunities to artists who often are put on hold by galleries and museums.
Geoffroy’s solution to this is to give these artist’s a stage to create art relevant for the moment they use the “Mobile Emergency Room”.
Geoffroy’s Format Art is a means for engagement with artists and public to create involved artwork. The work is constantly changed to give way for the current topic that needs to be solved and gives the practising artists material to comment on.
The first “Intervention” was facilitated by renowned curator Christine Eyene with the support of the Pavilion’s commissioner Doreen Sibanda, executive director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, and the Zimbabwe Pavilion’s curator, Raphael Chikukwa.
“Emergency Room to us, is encouraging a spirit of collaboration that the arts needs while maintaining a sense of sovereignty in our pavilion,” said Chikukwa.
The location of the “Mobile Emergency Room” at the Zimbabwe Pavilion is logically and reasonably justified.
Dudziro seeks to interrogate supernatural beliefs and to convey a solution or at least an observation of rites and religion in society such as Virginia Chihota’s work, “Mistakes in the Right Lines” which is centred on the fertility doll or “Shut up in My Bones” by Vhoti Thebe, a hakata piece.
In the context, the Zimbabwean artists address their theme, Geoffroy is right at home with them as he sets a cosmopolitan appeal to the exhibition.
The “Mobile Emergency Room” will exhibit at the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale until September 30.
The Zimbabwe Pavilion “Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs” runs until the November 24, 2013.
Online Reporter