Tawanda Takura
SADC | SDC
15 March - 15 April 2017 — SDC
Tawanda Takura will spend a month in Mauritius making new work in the context of Village Unhu in Harare and pARTage in Mauritius exploring an ongoing residency exchange. Takura is a sculptor who works in assemblage art with found objects and mostly old shoes.
“I work with old shoes because they have a deeper meaning; they absorb the previous owner’s soul and energy and have a certain poise of the owner in their structure. This somehow brings me closer to understanding the ordeals of the owners through their shoe,” he says.
The residency is intended as part of pARTage cultural exchange program and will include educational activities such as interaction with art students of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute and also talks and presentations to other artists and the general public.
pARTage is an artist`s-led art organisation which promotes art in Mauritius. It aims at connecting the local and the international art scenes, challenging insularity, creating further opportunities for local artists through local and international exhibitions, conferences, workshops and residencies.
During the last two weeks of his stay, Tawanda will join pARTage International Artists Workshop on the theme of “Migration, Identity and Belonging”; which will allow him to exchange with a wider community of artists coming from different parts of the world. (Trinidad, Congo, India, UK, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Zambia, Canada, Iceland, South Africa, Comoros, Madagascar, Reunion, Seychelles, Rodrigues and Mauritius).
The residence/workshop will culminate with an exhibition that will showcase all the works produced by the artists during their stay, to the Mauritian audience.
