Instruments of Memory / Simbi dzeNdangariro is Zimbabwean artist Masimba Hwati’s first solo exhibition in South Africa and his first with SMAC Gallery. As a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on sculpture, Hwati questions typical definitions and imagery associated with post-colonial societies, particularly on the African continent.

In Instruments of Memory, Masimba Hwati presents a unique collection of sculptural assemblages that intricately bind preconceived, often mistaken, ideas of ‘African’ and ‘Western’ imagery. Each artwork further investigates themes of ‘cultural symbiosis’ or the exchange between seemingly opposing cultures of stereotypical memetic traits. Hwati’s astute combinations of symbols and objects that are considered representative of endemically African cultures and more colonial-originating cultivations initiate this exchange.

As the title of the exhibition indicates, this new body of work grapples with the human experience of ‘memory’ and ‘energies’. Hwati draws on these seemingly abstract concepts through each of his found objects, many of which he considers culturally ‘traditional’ to his upbringing. Hwati physically alters and then re-imagines these objects by juxtaposing them and changing the socio-cultural space and context they occupy.

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