The Ora Loapi space at the 2023 Joburg Art Fair featured Shepherd Ndudzo’s work.
Courtesy Ora Loapi
His work can only be fully understood by observing the shared traditions of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Stella Chiweshe, performing in Amsterdam in 1988, kept ancient traditions alive.
Frans Schellekens/Redferns via Getty Images
She paved the way for women to play the mbira – and then took the ancient tradition global.
The artist in his studio.
Photo courtesy Richard Mudariki
Harare aims to join a growing list of African cities hosting high profile events to sell local art and bolster artists.
King Lobengula holds Mbuya Nehanda in the mural.
Screenshot/Leeroy Spinx Brittain aka Bow
The unity between Zimbabwe’s two main ethnic groups is so fragile that even an inspirational street mural can expose it.
Photo by Visual Narphilia courtesy Synik
Synik’s new album continues to shape identity and consciousness in a country with limited freedom of speech.
The Johannesburg version of the library.
Anthea Pokroy/Courtesy Kudzanai Chiurai
With vinyl records, zines and political posters instead of just books, The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember offers a way to reimagine African history.
Hope Masike performs at Gallery Delta in the documentary Art for Art’s Sake.
Screengrab/Granadilla Films
Gallerist and writer Robert Huggins and his wife, the artist Helen Lieros, have passed away. But their lives are a testament to what kind of impact one African art gallery can have.
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Through stand-up comedy, women in Zimbabwe can resist patriarchal power relations. There are still far fewer female stand-ups in the country but the field keeps on growing.
Zimbabwean stand-up comedian Munya Guramatunhu.
Courtesy Tirivashe/Munyaradzi Guramatunhu
Despite the challenges of being a female comedian, the women who do choose to perform feel emboldened to speak out in ways that can resist sexism.
Dambudzo Marechera, 1986.
© Ernst Schade via Humboldt University
Hundreds of handwritten letters found in an archive have revealed the real import of the writer’s enduring influence.
Tendaiishe Chitima, lead actress in the low-budget hit film Cook Off.
WIKUS DE WET/AFP via Getty Images
Low-budget, grassroots video-film efforts are beginning to blossom and will shape the film industry in the long run.
A scene from a play about the Gukurahundi genocide, 1983 The Dark Years, performed in Harare in 2018.
JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/Getty Images
Artists are filling the state’s silence by revisiting history so that it can be discussed.