Tamu Nkiwane (b. 1990 United Kingtom)
Green River, 2019
Mixed media installation
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist

This autobiographical work emerged from a four-month trip Tamu Nkiwane made to Zimbabwe last year. It was during this trip that he first met his grandfather on the occasion of the latter’s 90th birthday celebration. Nkiwane’s distant relationship to his grandfather, a key figure in the revolutionary struggles of the 1960s and 1970s which culminated in Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, is testimony to a history of displacements in the aftermath of political liberation struggles.

Green Riveris an immersive installation centered around a market stall, both a metaphor for the country’s weak economy and for Nkiwane’s ongoing negotiation of his own cultural identity in relation to Zimbabwe’s history.