Zimbabwe

Tengenenge Sculpture: A reflection of dynamics, changes in culture.

 _{By S. Garan’anga.}

_{Tengenenge sculpture park today has a more concise coherent and considered display of sculpture with historic bent separating the sculptors into generations. Artists sought-after are more easily found, of the same generation comparison between their work is easier more valuable. Anew generation of Tengenenge sculptors that is not classified by age but by their acumen in telling stories in stone and how they treat stone, using every device in the book to bring out the colours is apparent. Today sculptors who think and work big at Tengenenge find that the big idea benefits from the monumental presence of the work. Overpowering by their scale and the magnitude of the idea behind the work are Nimrod Phiri's Big Family, a vertical line up of family members more than seven feet high, Last Mahwawa's Lovers in a big screen clinch, Wilfred Tembo's Chair embossed on the back with a highly decorative lion. Surrounding the Chair are Tembo's cats in stone, rolling on their backs, legs in their air, curled up into tight balls of fur, sleeping by a non-existent fire.}

_{Up from Tembo strategically placed so that they are viewed directly from the Verandah are the sculptures of Victor Faya. Winning the Best Three Dimensional Work in the Nama Visual Arts Merit Awards in 2004 did not stop Faya who has moved on to make better sculptures out of ancient stones underpinning the ancient power of the African chief. Faya's heads, all angles and plains, are severe and commanding and have great presence. There are his Tonga families, totemic pieces that express the strength and breadth of the family unit among the Tonga people. There are new ''names'' at Tengenenge today- Issa Sims, Douglas Shawu, Miacos Mugugu, Waison Chiredzero, Edson Seda - all young sculptors well versed in the formal principles of sculpture and informed by the example of older artists. Sims' "King Heads" are large columns of stone that culminate in a peak in the manner of Nyau masks. He leaves some of the surfaces of his stones rough, polishes them so that the browns and tans gleam and creates painterly surfaces. Of all sculptors today at Tengenenge Issa Sims stands out for his treatment of the surface of his stones. Mugugu highlights the surface of his springstone with flat planes of unpolished areas, his "Lovers" which at first appear like a huge wingspan seems ready to take off from the ground and become suspended in space. Kelvin Fernando in his '''Dancing Lady" and "Dancing Queen" sands the stone to a white surface to present the lace of his lady's dresses.}

_{Seda in darkly polished springstone captures in his "Leaf Heads" the soft folds of a leaf, its veins and chalky stem. Chiredzero, as a person, has much to day and equally much to say in his sculptures on many and varied subjects. "Honeymoon Lovers" heads are garlanded and decorated with flowers or are they vine leaves? The lips of each lover are puckered - about to kiss. His "Fish and Mermaid" is a story in stone about a fish that falls in love with a mermaid, his scales match her tail, and his fishy eyes her eyes. There is a "Happy Fish" a fish, which would leap and gambol in the water and avoid the hook. Chiredzero, highly articulate and equally voluble in his sculptures was a student of the late Bernard Matemera and a sculpture of two heads conjoined is unashamedly "after" Matemera - a tribute to his master. He comments of Matemera “I felt hat my father is dead yet alive, he remains the inspiration of my work, he was a man who welcomed all, the rich and poor man at his gate and was everyone's friend''}

<sub>These young sculptors give Tengenenge sculpture a new out look which takes more into account the properties of the stone, the potential of contrast, worked surface and polish to bring out colour to define subject. Seen close together the sculptures of these young artists do not seem crowed but somehow claim a space for themselves however small and make it their own. Issa Sims' five heads on his stand appear a compendium for the shape and form of the Nyau masks, the Kampini, the Maria, the Josepha, the Simone among them. Walking further through Tengenenge as we knew it before with trails of sculptures leading down slopes and up slopes an even up mountains are found Bester Bauden’s silent voiceless forms, immutable as if they had been there for centuries. When the afternoon mist wreathes itself around the sculptures and the light plays on the stones giving myriad of colour to one stone the Nyaus might well burst through the trees.

Waison Chiredzero comments: ''The Nyaus come on their own, they come when they are asked. They add to the cultural value of Tengenenge, they speak of the communities origins and beginnings and where people came from, and they speak of the origin and beginning of Tengenenge sculpture". Engulfed in the mist and afternoon silence is the work of some women sculptors - Aggassa Mailolo, Maudy Muhoni and Kamurai Kavhu - dainty figurine like women in stone, displaying their femininity throwing their skirts around a treat, women to the bone. The old structures which made Tengenenge operational in the early days still stand, family life which includes the extended family, "marriages which stay married", respect for age and indeed longevity, Amali Mailolo nearly ninety from Malawi still fashions his stone into fish and crocodile from the Lake. Yet the massive amounts of sculpture which lie on the ground like beached creatures during the current warmth of the arctic summer are a reminder of the position of Tengenenge in the international art world, represented by Faya, Tembo, Chiredzero, Sims and Shawa.</sub>

_{There is also Kelvin Fernando with his women decked out in their lazy skirts, Farai Kasingi's ramp and catwalk women and Nimrod Phiri's rendition in stone of his family dynasty that spreads from Malawi to Zimbabwe to South Africa. Don't forget Josia Manzi's tangled Yao tales in stone and Mailolo's "hunting" crocodiles in Lake Malawi. If there is such a thing as "Tengenenge Sculpture" today it is work which is caught up in and reflects the dynamics and changes in culture which affect this community of artists in the remote bush under the Dyke as they do people the world over. Tengenenge outwardly may seem unchanged apart from a re-allocation of space for the -sculptor's work, a more controlled exhibiting space and less chance for the visitor to puff and pant his or her way up mountains high and down valleys low. But internally, under the surface, things have changed and through the sculpture it can be seen that Tengenenge artists young and old have a thoroughly modern approach to live and how it should be lived.}

_{Stephen Garan'anga is a visual artist from Zimbabwe. View his portfolio}