Installation view, Kresiah Mukwazhi, Ndakamira pamukaha, Jan Kaps, Cologne, 2022. Photo: Simon Vogel. Courtesy: the artist and Jan Kaps, Cologne.

Kresiah Mukwazhi: Ndakamira Pamukaha

Kresiah Mukwazhi’s practice has been characterized by her advocacy for visibility and the rights of women who face discrimination in patriarchal societies. Committed to an approach of visual activism, the artist explores the female body as a site of power relations in performances, video works, and textile collages.

Installation views, Kresiah Mukwazhi, Ndakamira pamukaha, Jan Kaps, Cologne, 2022. Photos: Simon Vogel. Courtesy: the artist and Jan Kaps, Cologne.

In her new series of nine textile works, partly wall-mounted and free-floating in space, Mukwazhi turns her attention to the underlying structures of such systemic violence. Referencing a variety of sources, the artist exposes and deconstructs the narratives that present women as the Other in Zimbabwean society.

Although concerned with broader structural questions the artist explores these in specific social environments. The titular work refers to the hierarchies of chiefdom that are typical of rural Africa. In a collage of loosely cut cloth and rawly applied paint Mukwazhi refers to the act of challenging such an imbalance of power by a woman stripping in resistance, something that is believed to cast a bad omen on the agitator. Instead of being sexualized, the female body becomes a site of protest giving the woman an almost otherworldly strength.

Kresiah Mukwazhi (b. 1992, in Harare, Zimbabwe) is a graduate of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe Visual Art School. Recent exhibitions include Ndakamira Pamukaha at Jan Kaps, Cologne (2022), Empowerment at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2022), Zimbabwean Pavilion at the 59th La Biennale di Venezia (2022), Mixed Company at the Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2021), Zviratidzo at blank projects, Cape Town (2021), Mukando at Jan Kaps, Cologne (2020), Five Bhobh - Painting at the End of an Era at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), Cape Town (2019), Not The Usual Suspects at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2018), and That, Around Which the Universe Revolves, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin at Njelele Art Station, Harare (2017).