Elisa Pierandrei talks to the photographer who wants to create a more diverse picture of masculinity – in between comfort and discomfort.
Elisa Pierandrei: Could you tell us a bit about your beginnings as a photographer?
Tatenda Chidora: I grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe, and came across photography thorough reading commercial and art magazines. In 2010, after moving to South Africa, I bought myself a camera and started to learn how to use it, because I have always had a fascination with it. At that time photography was not even in the picture. I always wanted to be a chef and had found a job in a restaurant. It was a friend of mine who insisted on taking me to the photography department of the university where he was studying in Pretoria, which has a prestigious reputation for the study of photography. I looked at what the students were producing as assignments and, impressed, I enrolled in one of their degree programs.
Tatenda Chidora, Self isolation II, 2021. Ilford Gold fibre Pearl 290gsm, 102cm x 132cm Courtesy of the artist.
EP: Portraiture is a consistent part of your body of work. The naked bodies of your models often display an invisible beauty, hidden behind little objects from everyday life.
TC: I use these elements as props. I display them in my pictures to explain how we live here and to challenge the stereotypes of what our existence in this world looks like. The pins, the surgical masks, and the thermal blanket I have used in my photographic compositions are daily-life objects collected in various circumstances. They suggest a context of existence where African men strive to find a way of survival and how to be able to make it to the next step as individuals.
EP: That’s interesting.
TC: My models for most part are African male subjects because my portraiture work aims to face issues that pertain to my own identity. I want to translate the responsibilities we have and go through in our societies. There’s always something we run away from. In my images, there are elements that we as African men are happy to face, some things that we are comfortable with, and something we are not comfortable talking about.
EP: Could you explain the role of colors in your work?
TC: I primarily appreciate the texture of sunlight. I am always intrigued by how natural light falls onto my subjects and, in particular, how Black skin tones read with it. In my last body of work, titled If Covid Was a Color (2022), the most prominent color is blue worn on Black skin. When I put blue next to the Black skin, my digital camera took off the red from the skin naturally. And made the skin of my models darker than normal. There are emotions attached to these colors and meanings attributed to them. The dark skin emphasizes the beauty that lies in Blackness – a continual personal celebration. I created this body of work to celebrate how humankind copes in difficult times, in this case the COVID-19 pandemic.
EP: A celebration of Black African consciousness is evident in your work. How did the portrait Table Seat (2019) come about?
TC: At that time I was experimenting with a stylist friend of mine, Nao Serati. The level of masculinity presented by this image is quite high. It was shot outside an all-male dormitory in Vosloorus, near Johannesburg. The man in the picture is a model we selected for the project. Conversation started about what he was wearing and why he looked like that, because you don’t normally see men in that kind of outfit here. The image challenges the social constraints that come with the defined norms for how African men need to present themselves, and in particular how you need to show yourself in public.
Tatenda Chidora, A lot has been happening, 2023. Felix Schoeller True Fibre 310gsm. 80cm x 100cm. Courtesy of the artist.
EP: With the image A lot has been happening (2023), you have initiated a new body of work. How is this project different from the previous ones?
TC: When I was having a conversation with a viewer at an art fair, she spoke of confrontations with death and having to lie on top of the grave of the deceased. In the image, I wanted to explore how people become violent against the human body. Our hands can be used to express care, gentleness, love, and compassion, but the very same hands can be used to fight, hurt, or destroy. The same with our feet: we can run towards helping others and we can run to destroy. In my experience, we’ve fought so many battles against gender violence in the intimacy of our homes that we are forgetting the elements of humanness towards each other. The reverence and fear of seeing blood is slowly becoming diluted.
EP: How do you make use of photographic film?
TC: Earlier on, I enjoyed quite a lot of shootings with black and white and sometimes color film. It offers a completely different experience than digital because the development process slows you down and allows surprise elements, coming out of the printing process, that allows imperfections to be valued. However, I use film to create a grade for images that I would have shot digitally. I enjoy the surprise element that comes with different films.
Born in Zimbabwe and based in South Africa, Tatenda Chidora is a commercial, fine art, and fashion photographer. Chidora studied photography at the Tshwane University of Technology, completing his BTech in 2015. Besides his work as a commercial photographer, he likes to say that he remains a humble student of the medium while carving out a style of his own. In 2023 he received the BJP’s Portrait of Humanity award for his series If Covid Was a Color, featured in various publications and exhibitions.
Elisa Pierandrei is a journalist and author based in Milan. Over the years she has gained an interest in the Middle East, Africa, and their Diasporas. She writes and researches stories across art, literature, and visual media.
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