Format: 14,8 x 21 cm

Details: Softcover, Schutzumschlag, 80 Seiten

Series design concept: Sabo Day

Graphic design: Sabo Day

Texts: Noemi Smolik (essay), Pauline Chirata Mukondiwa (poem), Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa and Kresiah Mukwazhi (conversation)

24 images

Secession 2023

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Köln

ISBN 978-3-7533-0422-9

EUR 18,00

Intervention by the artist:

kuda, 2015

Black-and-white photograph, 10 × 15 cm, stamped on the back, loosely inserted into the book

On occasion of her exhibition at the Secession, the Kresiah Mukwazhi releases her first monograph. She speaks to the curator Fadzai Muchemwa about key themes of her work: the everyday lives and oppression of women, the consequences thereof for social progress in Zimbabwe, and her ideas about healing; the art historian Noemi Smolik, meanwhile, gives an introduction to Mukwazhi’s oeuvre. Reproductions of numerous works and a series of photographs by the artist framing a poem by Pauline Chirata Mukondiwa illustrate the publication, which includes an artistic intervention in the form of a limited-edition black-and-white photoprint.

The art historian and critic Noemi Smolik has written numerous texts on contemporary art as well as on Russian art history, curated exhibitions, and taught at art colleges. She writes regularly for the FAZ, Artforum/New York and Kunstforum/Cologne. She lives in Berlin and Prague.

Pauline Chirata Mukondiwa has described the Shona language as a fundamental cultural tool that defines her identity as Zimbabwean and has published two poetry collections in English and Shona to demonstrate that both can equally occupy the language canon. The author’s poetry explores the power of words to traverse a wide range of emotions.

Researcher, writer and curator Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa is a Curator for Contemporary Art at The National Gallery of Zimbabwe and curated the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2022. She lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Kresiaha Mukwazhi
Kirawa