MAVIS TAUZENI
Pachedu (Among Ourselves)
Opening Reception: July 26th, 5-7 PM
July 26th - August 20th, 2022
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Tauzeni was born in 1982, just two years after independence from British and Rhodesian apartheid regime. Born in a rural and deeply traditional setting of Mutoko, she came to live in Harare as a teenager and the sense of immersion in nature as well as connection with traditional ways of being are very poignant for her personally and artistically.
Her imagery, which oscillates between the surreal, futuristic and dreamy, treats figuration symbolically and conceptually as an environment which suggests a possibility for a different reality – an implicit social commentary. Tauzeni has fought hard to assert her right to be an artist in a family context where single women are seen as adjunct family carers and careers are not validated especially those which don’t have the formality of office hours, and has insisted on the validity of her personal choice and an independent life journey.
Rooted in realities of her life in Zimbabwe, these works are immediately empathetic, not only to women but to all of us yearning to break out of convention and social expectation. Gender activism is something that has to accommodate her integrity and personal values in the same way as tradition does. This positional drama of the works of Tauzeni is one of emergence. How does one become one true self in dramatically and rapidly changing world. While effortlessly attractive the symbolism of butterflies emerging from cocoons and flowers in her work is deeply resonant of that conversation about personal growth, fragility.
Deeply conscious of feminism and gender in her work, she positions her practice more broadly, firmly believing that being a contemporary artist does not mean a break with all her traditional values as an African woman. In her own words “In my practice I assert the right to be a woman on my own terms and those terms include respect for family and tradition, the right to demand intimacy, privacy where they are needed and to speak softly when I want to. And while it has in some ways this insistence has meant sacrifices in the speed of career progression, it has unequivocally meant not sacrificing my integrity and personal values.”
In Pachedu Tauzeni, puts emphasis on collaborative work of women in traditional and contemporary life, the sharing of burdens and mutual support that women take on in childbearing and childrearing and also the emotional reliance that is a pillar of that collaboration. The works in this exhibition, touch light but poignantly on passages of life impacting women and which provide a framework for society and its wellbeing, not just in Zimbabwe but globally.
Given the urgent social, political and environmental challenges facing the world today, Pachedu is both an invocation to the power of collaboration between women but also a call to action to defend what is joyful, beautiful and precious in our lives.
Valerie Kabov
©2022
