Domboremari (Blue) 2015 Linocut on Zerkall Litho 300gsm
100 x 81 cm Edition of 6 made with Warren Editions
2015-2017
Tombstone For Rhodesia 2016
Tombstone For Rhodesia 2016 Zimbabwean black granite 40 x 69.5 x 6.5 cm
The Maxim gun was used by a small number of settlers to colonise the country they then called Rhodesia. 90 years later after a war against the colonial masters fought with the help of another weapon – the AK-47 the country became Zimbabwe. These two guns can be seen as bookends for the colonial time of Rhodesia and this is its tombstone.
Thanks to Pro Helvetia
Tombstone for Rhodesia
Native Soil 2017
Native Soil 2017 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints listing the farm names in Zimbabwe that were part of the fast-track land reform program 79 x 91.5 cm
In the year 2000 the Zimbabwean government began a policy of fast-track land reform. This involved seizing white-owned farms in order to compensate war veterans who had fought in the liberation war. These farm invasions were often violent and proved very detrimental to the economy which was largely based on agriculture.
Native Soil (detail)
The Modern Traveller 2016 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints
29,7 x 21 cm
Text taken from the poem The Modern Traveller (1898) by Hilaire Belloc
The Maxim gun was first used by Britain’s colonial forces in the 1893-1894 First Matebele War in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It played an important role in the swift colonisation of Africa in the late 19th century. The extreme lethality was employed to devastating effect against obsolete charging tactics, when native opponents could be lured into pitched battles in open terrain. As it was put by Hilaire Belloc, in the words of the figure ‘Blood’ in his poem The Modern Traveller:
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.
Lobengula’s troops were a disciplined force by pre-colonial African standards, and they were equipped with both assegais and Martini-Henry rifles, but the British pioneers’ Maxim guns, which had never before been used in battle, far exceeded expectations, according to an eyewitness ‘mow[ing] them down literally like grass’. By the time the Matebele withdrew, they had suffered about 1,500 fatalities; the British, on the other hand, had lost only four men. The annihilating effectiveness of the Maxims was such that they cut down wave after wave of advancing Matebele. In one engagement, for example, 50 company soldiers with just four Maxim guns fought off 5,000 Matebele warriors.
Bamba Zonke 2016
Bamba Zonke 2016 Found plastic-weave bag, custom-made tartan fabric 65 x 70 cm
The Zulu phrase ‘bamba zonke’ means ‘take / grab everything’
Dialogue With The Youth 2017
Dialogue With The Youth 2017 Rotten wisdom teeth, velvet and gold-leaf frame 35 x 52 cm
Dialogue With The Youth (detail)
Inspired by Martin Kippenberger’s work. One night in Berlin after allegedly drunkenly parading as a Nazi at the punk club SO36 (which he helped run), Kippenberger was severely beaten and hospitalized. The next day he had a photographer take shots of his bandaged, swollen face, from which he then painted a self-portrait titled ‘Dialogue with the Youth of Today’ (1981).
Skövde Space Invader 2017 duration: 2’30”
Z$100 Trillion
Z$100 Trillion 2017 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 82 x 163 cm
The Z$100 trillion note was the largest ever printed in Zimbabwe. It came at a time when hyperinflation had soared so high that it reached Z$300 trillion to the US dollar on the black market in February 2009. Shortly afterwards the Zimbabwean currency was abandoned and replaced with US dollars. The Z$100 trillion has become a collector’s item.
US$1 2017
US$1 2017 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 72 x 173 cm
US dollars, legal tender in Zimbabwe since 2009 are referred to as ‘magirinhi’ – ‘greens’, ‘huni nyoro’ – ‘firewood that is not dry’ and ‘mashizha’ – ‘leaves’ which are usually green.
Kuwona Hutsi 2017
Kuwona Hutsi 2017 Matchsticks outlining R.G. Mugabe’s signature and dirty US dollars from Zimbabwe 33 x 31 cm
‘Kuwona hutsi’ means seeing smoke in Shona in Zimbabwe. It is one of the metaphors that the Shona speakers created to communicate various messages concerning the socio-economic and political crisis that has been occurring in their country since the year 2000. ‘Seeing smoke i.e. having smoke in the eyes’ and by extension ‘being caught in a burning building’, all have the connotations of one being on an unsustainable, difficult, hopeless and confusing situation.
The Zimbabwe crisis as captured in Shona metaphor. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233222046_The_Zimbabwe_crisis_as_captured_in_Shona_metaphor
