Shona Stone Sculpture: A Public Lecture Celia Winter-Irving*

College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales Thursday April 23, 2009

Soottie began to wonder. In Australia he heard that African spent their time having wars, and fighting each other because they believed in different things. But here at Wootland (Tengenenge) where there is freedom the Nyau can dance, the Christians can pray, and the Nyau dance is watched by everyone, even the Christian sculptors. And here was Mr. Tom dancing and brewing beer for these Nyau - what wonderful man. Winter-Irving (2001) i

I saw Jesus wearing white walking down the main street of Guruve meeting the Mhondoro Sanwell Chirume, Tengenenge All sculptors working in Zimbabwe today are taken away from their families, and more than others, they are taken away from their culture, often their language and their way of life and they have to learn to make do without these things. Merchers Chiwawa in Winter-Irving (2005) ii

The male sculptors in my Studio are delighted to have women to work with. Above all they show us that we are not so different from men,, that we are all people doing the same thing. The stones do not distinguish whether we are men or women and nor should we. Dominic Benhura iii

Introduction To all present in the hope that this Public Lecture will present the Visual Arts of Zimbabwe as a triumph over adversity I have spent the last nineteen years in Zimbabwe, and on behalf of Zimbabwe in the international art arena, working with visual artists as curator, writer of published books on the stone sculpture and writer for the local media. I have witnessed changes in Zimbabwe which might have destroyed people had they not been Zimbabwean. I have

seen a Zimbabwe put down by the rest of the world yet a Zimbabwe in which the visual arts flourish - there were over two thousand people at the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Awards Ceremonies in 2009. There have been frantic letters, phone calls and Emails from friends, colleagues and family in Australia saying come home. I have said no. Always there was another job offer, another invitation to write a book, another invitation outside of Zimbabwe to give a lecture curate an exhibition, One Ambassador said to me: We admire your work, your tenacity but we feel you should as we do, leave Zimbabwe when your tour of duty is done. My tour of duty is not complete. I have two new books being published this year: A Survey of the Arts of Zimbabwe NAMA Awards: A Case Study which will be published by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe and Spirit of Women The Sculpture of Lazarus Takawira to be published by Marie Imbrova, former Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to Zimbabwe. I must go back and see these through their launches. I must further work with the remote Bhobogrande sculptors under the bare face of Bare Mountain swirling with myths and legends and fires with no known origin. I must return to Tengenenge my home in Zimbabwe my home in the world. I must go back to what appears a new Zimbabwe a country of conciliation and shelves full of cat food, a country where roads and feelings are being mended and put together again. What is Africa Today? Africa is the home to many different civilizations, countries and cultures, a place of different pre colonial, colonial and post colonial inheritances and histories, ethnicities, tribal, national, regional and sub-regional, cultural and linguistic barriers. Pan-Africanism creates an identity of the African continent as a whole. For centuries in Africa the arts have flourished in particular the magico/religious, decorative and functional visual arts. Migration, the emergence of trade relations, courts and geopolitics, the colonial inheritance, patronage, systems of governance have had bearing on consumption and production of visual arts. Traditionally the visual arts of court or the village were parts of peoples lives, the artist an esteemed member of society. Post-colonial Africa has seen a change in the identity of the artist, artists wishing to be seen as international artists at biennales, art fairs and galleries in New York, other artists working outside the interlocutory system whose work appears on walls of township houses, on the street made from everything and anything capturing the socio/political rhetoric of their time. The Stone Sculpture of Zimbabwe: The Wheres, the Whats, the Whys and the Wherefores In Zimbabwe the stone sculpture remains reflective of its country of origin, the sculptors coming largely from ordinary backgrounds and from disadvantaged rural or high density areas. They do not see themselves as privileged but people who earn their living and support their families through their art. They are former mealie guards, piece works, tobacco farm workers, farm hands, policemen and the unemployed. Yet as the sculpture becomes an esteemed means of earning a living those trained formally for example airline pilots, salesmen, teachers, public relations men, and professional women become sculptors. Today they realize that their work must stand as being good sculpture

anywhere in the world, and that once seen outside of Zimbabwe it is subject to international critical appraisal. They must meet the challenge of new sculpture, more literary, more ephemeral, engaging with IT, electronics, physics often things beyond their understanding, Yet the best of the early sculptors work still stands that of Nicholas Mukomberanwa the Takawira brothers Henry Munyaradzi and Joseph Ndandarika and at Tengenenge, Makina Kameya with his modern take of the Makishi dancers and Wazi Maicolos dark side of Yao folk lore rendered in stone. They are recognized internationally as truly African sculptors. Zimbabwe Zimbabwe is a small landlocked country in Southern Africa which of late has attracted world attention through its destabilized economic and social structures and lack of infrastructure to provide given social amenities in such areas as public health and education. Yet recent political events are beginning to re shape international public opinion about Zimbabwe and its relationship with the global world, and the phrase light at the end of the tunnel as coined by Frederick Chiluba Past President of Zambia may soon apply. Over recent years Zimbabwe has been isolated through sanctions imposed by individual countries and the international community at large. Yet today Zimbabwe is part of the global world, with an up and running I T driven approach to communication and business dealings. Its people may not have this and that but they have drive and an ability to find alternative solutions to problems. Zimbabwes relationship with other African countries is defined by trade agreements COMESA, SADC among them, resulting in free movement of goods, services and people to the benefit of all countries involved. But there have also been what might be termed today cultural exchanges movement of peoples from neighboring countries such as Malawi Zambia and Angola for example in the mid l950s in search of work, and their presence as workers on tobacco farms in the Guruve district together with that of their cultural manifestation the Gule Wamkulu - the great dance of the social institution of the nyau had and still has a strong cultural bearing on the stone sculpture made at the famed Tengenenge Sculpture Community. The strong spiritual and cultural bearings of the Zimbabwean people are apparent in their creative manifestations their music, their stone sculpture, their dance and literature. The arts are recognized to be at the forefront of national development with both direct and indirect economic and social benefit to the country. Zimbabwes Visual Culture: Aspects of Tangible and Intangible Heritage The development of Zimbabwe has been the outcome of synchronicity between human and natural resources, people and stone, people and the land, people and weather patterns. The agro-based economic has been developed by both white and black Zimbabweans land reform has favored the black populace but time will tell. The name Zimbabwe means House of Stone. In Zimbabwe, stone has many symbolic associations. It is a dominant feature of the natural landscape and a valuable and inexhaustible resource creatively the Zimbabwean people since the late Stone Age.

Since late Stone Age settlement on the Zimbabwe Plateau there have been rich manifestations of visual culture which are now recognized and preserved as tangible and intangible and imperishable and perishable heritage. These include rock art, the Zimbabwes, oral traditions, traditions of dance and material culture among the Eastern Bantu Shona and traditions of masquerade among neighbors settled in Zimbabwe such as the Gule Wamkulu and at Victoria Falls the Likishi Masquerade of the Mbunda Mbundu of North West Zambia and Angola - These remain symbolically, spiritually and socially features of the Zimbabwe cultural landscape, nurtured by the state. Various areas of rock art and the ruins of various Zimbabwes have been declared cultural sites, many with accompanying interpretive museums. The imprint of creativity upon stone since the late Stone Age rock artists has fostered development by way of evolution, change and social transformation in Zimbabwe. Granite caves offered shelter to the late Stone Age people whose rock art painting in pigments on the walls of these caves remains documentary evidence of their hunter gatherer lifestyle and trance/dance induced magico-religious ceremonials. Granite walls built without mortar housed permanent settlements/polities of late stone age people so they could create infrastructures bureaucracies which allowed the King to rule, divisions of labor (suited to a populace of l8,000 in the case of Great Zimbabwe) and developed art/craft based economies engaging in East Coast Trade. These do not have bearing on the emergence of the stone sculpture but remain part of the imperishable heritage of Zimbabwe. Today in Mashonaland Central massive deposits of spring stone and opal stone in the Guruve district and near Chiweshe provide fodder and fuel for ideas for over two thousand sculptors working in stone. The Infrastructure for the Visual Arts of Zimbabwe The growth of the arts industry in Zimbabwe over recent years must be seen as an example of triumph over adversity - artists despite challenges of lack of markets, increases in costs of production of their work, other and greater demands on their resources - like everyone else are out there they are also parents, responsible family members, citizens of their country, members of their village, their community, their environment with a necessary sense of social responsibility. The making of stone sculpture has turned remote rural areas and towns and high density areas into profitable growth points and it has in an entrepreneurial sense built up the mining industry, transport industry, the building industry, freighting crating and packing industries, hospitality industry, aviation industry and tourism. The new Ministry of Arts, Education Sport and Culture under Minister David Coltart, appears positively geared towards the increased economic accruement of the arts industry in Zimbabwe. The government since independence pursuing a noninterventionist, culturally sensitive and enlightened attitude and policy to the growth of the arts industry, has not channeled its returns to its own use or taken over the various independent autochthonous initiatives ranging from groups/communities of sculptors in remote rural areas such as Tengenenge and Bhobogrande to the creation of arts centers by the captains of the arts industry Oliver Mutukudzi and Clive Malunga in the peri-rural areas.

The Ministry together with its two parastatal arms, The National Gallery of Zimbabwe and the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, sees the arts as a most significant aspect of nation building and the formation of a Zimbabwean identity and character readily recognizable outside of the country. The National Arts Council may not provide handouts but it does provide ideas its call is the mobilization of the arts fraternity to make an impact on local society and to be an example in terms of progress and growth. The Council does not operate behind desks and through series of meetings it is out there is its trucks and on foot in rural and high density areas and represented in each province by a Provincial Office with its feet on the ground. The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe offers and proffers when it can financial support, promotional support and advice to groups of and individual artists outside the system and its Annual National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) which put and push artists in the fore front of the public eye are the most significant annual accolade to artists. In 2009 over 2,000 people attended the Awards ceremony a recognition of the place of the arts in the public eye of Zimbabwe. A book with Celia Winter Irving as chief writer and with other contributors A Survey of The Arts of Zimbabwe: The National Arts Merit Awards: A Case Study will be published this year by the National Arts Council marketed and launched locally, regionally and internationally. The National Arts Council formerly under the Directorship of Titus Chipangura and now under the Acting Directorship of Elvas Mari keep both a stern and liberal eye on arts development - in the more remote rural areas where stone is easily available and high density areas near the cities. The Council is mindful that the Tengenenge and Bhobogrande Sculptors still are challenged by lack of water, social and public amenities and lack of transport to the cities. High density areas suffer from lack of domestic space, poor hygiene and sanitation, unemployment, lack of youth facilities, high incidences of AIDS, and lack of shops selling consumer goods at the expense of bottle shops and shebeens. The National Arts Council has been actively involved in the planning of the Chitungwiza Arts Centre previously appearing like a tribal trust land moved en block from a remote rural area is now a flourishing sculpture garden where a large number of sculptors show their work. The Council sees sculptors as an investment into the growth and development of these areas, the sales of sculpture improving artists standards of living better housing, better health care and education for their children and often ploughing returns from the sales of their work into farming by modern methods. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe has provided institutional support for the nations visual arts since l956. Through various exhibitions, open competitions and educational services the Gallery recognizes the stone sculpture as mainstream to the arts of Zimbabwe. The Gallery recognizes that modern life in Zimbabwe foreshortens the distance between artists and the international art world. They travel and international trends and directions come into their work and they are welcomed to show new developments at the National Gallery. Great names have lent themselves to opening exhibitions at the National Gallery and as such the reputation of artists has been heightened and given public credibility. A series of open Zimbabwe Heritage exhibitions have given credibility to the visual artists in the eyes of the Zimbabwean people. During my period of sole curatorship (2004/7) at the National Gallery the Director and myself sought to maintain the standard of an international gallery in terms of the work exhibited and the curatorial processes applied.

The Forefront of Arts Development: Zimbabwes Stone Sculpture Zimbabwes stone sculpture is at the forefront on the international art worlds appreciation of contemporary African art. Today the stone sculpture has a competitive edge over any other contemporary art form produced in Africa. In Europe, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy, the stone sculpture has carved itself a niche in many prestigious private galleries and public parks which lend further reputation to even the best and most lastingly present of works. In its earlier and some say better days it dealt anecdotally, graphically and in terms of narrative with magico-religious ceremonials, non beings and symbolic truths - all elements of traditional African beliefs. Today, change in Zimbabwe, emancipation from colonial rule, modernization, post colonial influences and recently participation in the democratic process, disestablishment of proven systems and infrastructures, globalization and thinking along international lines, have brought about changes in content and form in the sculpture and a more international approach to means and material. Over the past sixty years the stone sculpture has recognized how Zimbabweans and indeed some from near neighboring countries who have worked at Tengenenge define themselves spiritually and socially, what position they take about their traditions, and how they relate to fall behind or keep pace with the rapid changes in a country; on the rack as it were to the world today. But rather than depicting in their work Zimbabwe as a country in a state of economic dishabille and social disintegration through the demise of efficacious systems, they depict it as a multi faith based country tolerant to a variety of faiths, and proudly claiming a diverse cultural and spiritual heritage in which conflict and enmity have played no part. Today the cultural identity of Zimbabwe past and present is secured by its stone sculpture a tradition with various loosely connected seminal and significant origins, the common denominator of which is closeness to deposits of raw stone found all over Zimbabwe, Unlike much contemporary African art doing the rounds of international Biennales and Art Fairs and indistinguishable from art anywhere else in the world the stone sculpture retains its Zimbabwean character and its language remains decipherably Zimbabwean. The tradition of story telling, a cultural attribute of the African people is carried on in the stone sculpture, in each sculpture hangs a tale which can deal variously with the circumstances of the artist, their relationship to the past. The sculpture can range from hard hitting, bedrock social commentary to sculpture extolling the social virtues of African traditions and beliefs and sculpture which accesses some of the less explicable cultural practices of the past, and the meaning of more obscure traditional /intangible knowledge systems. The sculpture seen in galleries in the west is not removed from peoples lives like much gallery art. The stone sculpture continues to touch move and become part of the being of the viewer. The work is meaningful to those far removed culturally from the sculptors themselves. The term the exotic other does not apply. Its messages cut across cultures, the situations it depicts are universal It talks about global warning, the 2010 World Cup and its consequences for Africa, about human rights and womens rights, about love of family, feelings about

illness and the approach of death and human situations and relationships common to people of all cultures. Historically sculpture has occupied peoples spiritual and social spaces, and has been looked up to in its representation of spiritual and social leaders. Moving from the public spaces of churches and cathedrals, city streets and squares into art museums and galleries sculpture has become partitioned off from the life of the ordinary person and its practitioners, largely the products of art schools and then studios cut off from the human mainstream. Outdoor sculpture parks: are largely simulated and contrived environments for the sitting and display of sculpture with a carry over of the gallery atmosphere and exclusivity, postmodernism and its complex nexus of theory and idea has resulted in art works which are termed and known as sculpture but which do not access the thoughts and feelings of the ordinary and average person. In Zimbabwe stone sculpture is everywhere and has no distinction or hierarchy of place. On the road from the airport, in the gardens of a more than ordinary suburbia, in the high density suburbs where people, houses, social problems and rank poverty live cheek by jowl, in the remote rural areas where people live off their chickens and with their goats outside their pole and dagga houses there is stone sculpture as there is inside the lavish gardens of the wealthy black elite behind their durawalls and in the high density areas and behind the rubbish bins. Westfalen Park in Dortmund Germany has hosted one and will host another exhibition of discretely placed stone sculpture firmly rooted in the sculptors cultures, beliefs and contemporary society. Bastian Muller, the Director of Galerie Shona Art in Witten Germany, the organizer /curator of this exhibition comments: I take into account that German people might not know much about Zimbabwe but they have been brought up to understand the great European traditions of sculpture and when they see sculpture they expect it to be good. These works deal with the African perception and experience. However universal each work comes from the way African people see life each sculpture chosen represents something about Zimbabwe as it was or is or as it shall be. iv There is much that a student of sculpture in Australia can learn about these sculptors relationship with their material, which plays its part in the formulation of ideas. The sculptors are not guided in their thinking by modernism, post modernism, structuralism, semiotics-rather they are guided by the shape form and colors of their stones spring stone, opal stone, lapidolite and butter jade. Its is not the outcome of ideas hurriedly thrown together for an exhibition, biennales or art fairs but the outcome of carefully considered formal and aesthetic judgments brought about by the sculptors relationship with the stone. The sculptors are not restricted by the edicts of church and state or forced to represent national interests or ideologies in their work. Trained and informally educated by the stone itself, their family members, artists within their communities the sculptors use their creative imagination to draw from their material subjects, topics and narratives dealing with their backgrounds and current way of life.

The Origins of the Stone Sculpture: Playground for Scholars The origins of the stone sculpture are several and various - patronage, the situation of the artists, their ready access to knowledge of their African traditions and spiritual practices, and to their material locally mined stone. Historians formerly weighing in on the influence over the origins of the movement of Frank McEwen first Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe now with access to more material and data, take a more balanced viewpoint and give recognition to the two missionary priests Father John Groeber (of Serima Mission) and Canon Edward Paterson (of Cyrene Mission).as conduits and the Tengenenge Sculpture Community at Guruve for the provision of the most culturally authentic sculpture within the tradition today and opening the movement out to include artists from neighboring countries of Malawi Zambia, Tanzania and Angola. Indeed the term Shona Sculpture freely used is a misrepresentation of the ethnic diversity of sculptors at Tengenenge. It implies collectivity and has hints of tribalism unacceptable in Zimbabwe today. If there is a tradition of Shona Sculpture it is a tradition within the tradition sculpture which venerates the social value of the Eastern Bantu Shona traditions respect for elders, a sense of community, a belief in a link between the spirit world and non beings to the moral realm and what can be proved and a respect for women as male counterpart. Frank McEwen first Director of the National Gallery of the then Rhodesia in l956, habitu of the Paris art world, friend of Picasso Derain and Matisse, knowledgeable about the cultural and market value in the early Cl960s of the traditional African object -mask, fetish etc. recognized artistic expression as a natural expression of the African people. His flamboyant personality and his ability to make himself a living legend during his time were to his advantage as a seen history maker. He recognized in Rhodesia through talking with Gallery attendant Thomas Mukarobgwa much folkloric, legendary and anecdotal material could be transcribed into stone sculpture. He met Joram Mariga an Agricultural extension worker in the Eastern Highlands whom he encouraged to extrapolate from the stone images of the baboon and symbolic truths inchoate in its spiritual role. Mariga encouraged other workers to sculpt and thus began the Nyanga group of sculptors working in stone. McEwen started the National Gallery Workshop School in the basement of the National Gallery here African men sought to represent images relating to belief systems tangible and intangible, non-beings, symbolic truths embodied in legend anecdote and myth in stone sculpture. An international platform was given to them through McEwens arrangement of exhibitions at the Musee Rodin and Musee d Arte Moderne in l971/2 in Paris. Prior to that in l953 Father John Groeber, a Swiss architect and missionary, came to Rhodesia and organized sculptors and painters to transform an ordinary stucco walled bush chapel in the grounds of Serima School into an opulent cradle of African Christianity adorned as much as any European cathedral with huge totemic sculptures of Christ and frescoes of the Last Supper, The late Nicholas Mukomberanwa began his tutelage in sculpture through the study of West African masks the form and feature of which were formal characteristics of his later sculpture in stone imparting his perceived

spirituality outside of any institutionalized or traditional religion and sculpture which was a platform for his speaking out against corruption and abuse of power. Tapfuma Gutsa renegade, radical and iconoclast within this tradition went the way of an international sculptor and then returned home making classical Shona sculptures: depicting the social value of Shona spiritual traditions, customs and way of life. Tengenenge: The Beginning of the Beginning The Tengenenge Sculpture Community in the Guruve district l50ks from Harare has since its origins in the late l950s given far broader definition than the term Shona Sculpture to the stone sculpture made in Zimbabwe. What largely has been and is produced at Tengenenge remains conceptually rooted in the traditions of masquerades of the early artists Cewa and Yao from Malawi Mbunda Mbundu from Angola and North West Zambia. In the mid l950s an influx of immigrants from these countries came to Rhodesia to work on tobacco farms in the Guruve District many of these were carvers in wood of masks, makers of drums and dancers. The Nyau masquerade of the Cewa became a regularly practiced cultural feature of life on the farms of the Guruve District, playing its part in rites of passage and funerary rites and at the level of entertainment satirized the missionaries and district commissioners who had denied them their culture in their countries of origin. Tom Blomefield Founder and Former Director of the Tengenenge Sculpture Community had come to Rhodesia to seek a life that was better than stitching and sutering wounds of soldiers in sickbays in the South African navy. As an apprentice tobacco farmer in the Guruve District he learned the Cewa language when he had his own farm Tengenenge farm he realized that his workers were artists in their own right. International sanctions against Rhodesia and the decline in the tobacco market saw Tom Blomefield commandeer the skills and creativity inherent in his workers to carving serpentine stone found in huge deposits in the mountains of the Great Dyke above Tengenenge and making stone sculpture - largely works simulating the shape and form of the dancers in their masquerades and the masks they wore. The local Eastern Bantu Korekore a sub group of those known as Shona today also carved made sculptures dealing with their lion spirits and legendary kings. Tom Blomefield, rotund cheerful and a great dancer became a sculptor himself. Tengenenge despite its remoteness and traditional and culturally appropriate methods of governance and way of life soon made inroads into the international art world and gave fresh cultural meaning and sense of African authenticity to a tradition of sculpture which was becoming praised for its economic benefits to the arts rather than being appraised in terms of authentic African art and sculpture. An exhibition Paixao Africa at the Tropical Museum in the Tropical Gardens above Funchal Madeira Portugal showed very early Tengenenge sculptures their shapes and forms derived from the forms of the masked dancers in the Nyau, Nyago and Ben and Likishi masquerades. These came from a collection owned by Jacob van Tilberg a cactus farmer in Pretoria in South Africa into the possession of Jose Berardo, a Madeiran art philanthropist with a large private gallery in Lisbon. Displayed with a diorama-like Tengenenge bush background this exhibition gave great and authentic presence to Tengenenge itself as well as some of its sculptures of immeasurable cultural worth.

Tom Blomefield says that Tengenenge simply happened it was not planned and what did happen was a spontaneous reaction to a set of circumstances which if left for themselves would have resulted in disaster for his tobacco farm workers. But Tengenenge today a globally connected and respected community of sculptors with cultural values and practices intact has moved on with tenacity of purpose, a practical vision based on the development of the workings of the human mind and the creative imagination through the making of stone sculpture. As Tom Blomefield commented recently to me in Germany earlier this year: The basis of our survival is an inexhaustible supply of springstone, added to which is a chance for the local population to do something creative with their hands and earn a living from it. The third element is the people who desire to buy high quality works of art in stone and get an intriguing insight into African culture. This is an example of natural resources coming together with human resources in the cause of development. Tengenenge has never been subject to the clash of civilizations which results from clashes of cultures. Tom Blomefield now eighty three years old and living in the Netherlands making sculpture, running a small gallery and opening Tengenenge exhibitions realized that African traditions offer more social stability to life than modern living in particular in their preservation of the institutions of family and marriage. These institutions remain fast at Tengenenge which is a true community of people who share what has to be done-digging road, loading sculptures onto trucks, mining stone, taking people to the clinic and overall caring for others including those outside their cultural and spiritual boundaries. While other projects in Africa become funding dependant and short lived Tengenenge which ahs had little to no outside support flourishes and grows, Tengenenge in Africa and beyond is recognized as a centre of religious freedom within a world where religion has become partisan prone to pettiness and extremes and conflicts. The social dynamics at Tengenenge are controlled by an intricate network of family, spiritual and professional ties and intercultural values. As Tom Blomefield comments: Tengenenge has been through a great deal and come out alive the liberation struggle meant that Tengenenge was war torn we lived on hope, bush tea and berries and many artists left to live in the city. I stayed with Josia Manzi a Yao from Malawi and his family. Today the young sculptors whose work is more international, more modern retain their respect for tradition in their work, see, stone sculpture as a means of preserving traditions. The artist Victor Faya added to this in his comments: I use old stones because I feel they contain some history they speak of the time when people mixed daily life with ceremonials and chief ruled over the Guruve district, I dig around older sculptors knowledge of their past. I tell in my sculptures the stories old men used to tell to younger

people. To me African traditions are not part of history but part of my life today. I make chiefs whose minds are worn to the bone by their responsibilities and who can become corrupted by power, and sculptors of families at the head the ancestral spirits at the bottom the young children. The Guruve District formerly a tribal trust land has suffered non-arable land, climatic extremes and people living far apart unable to seek cooperative markets for their produce. Its greatest natural resource locally mined stone was not utilized for development until the emergence of Tengenenge. It is an area of great spiritual endowment historically chiefs and kings spiritually appointed held sway over people and land Today it is the Vapostories, the break away Christians who hold their services under the trees, wear white and abstain from smoking and alcohol. Today thanks to the success of Tengenenge sculptors are buying farms, starting bus companies, owning shops and stores and turning Guruve into a worthy rural satellite measurable in developmental terms with other rural areas in Zimbabwe. Now Tengenenge has changed hands and the new Director is Dominic Benhura the most famous sculptor working in Zimbabwe an artist whose work has become legitimized as world art yet a man who remains iconic in Zimbabwe and a national symbol. Tom Blomefield comments in an article I wrote for the Air Zimbabwes inflight journal Sky Host: v I wanted Tengenenge to be run by someone sympathetic to the dynamics of history and tradition at Tengenenge which still hold fast and provide the firmament of the community. I wanted someone who could put in place developmental projects suited to a remote rural community. So at a culturally appropriate ceremonial Dominic Benhura was installed as the new Director of Tengenenge. Adding to this, Dominic Benhura comments in the same article: I come from a rural area. I know the limitations of rural life but the sculptors at Tengenenge have overcome these limitations through the quality of their work. Their art comes from the heart its raw and very, very African, Tengenenge gives these artists things that money cannot buy things of the soul and spirit. I dont want to take away the atmosphere of Tengenenge which despite its international reputation and standing has not changed over the years. I want to preserve not take away but I want also to look at social amenities a school, a clinic. The National Arts Council of Zimbabwe is right behind my developmental approach my right hand man. At the time of my writing this lecture Dominic Benhura was installing pipes and a bore hole at Tengenenge mindful of the cholera epidemic which had come to Zimbabwe.

Bhobogrande, Chitungwiza and Tafara: New Homes for Stone Sculpture The Bhobogrande sculptors provide for an essay in successful rural development in Mashonaland Central near Chiweshe in a farming belt but where opal stone is mined. Their nearest town is Bare a one horse town under Bare Mountain. Bhobogrande sculptors were largely former miners spurred on as sculptors by Tom Blomefield and myself who organized a competition for their work. After judging this competition I was rung and thanked by Alec Jacob and as we talked we evolved a developmental program discussed at 5am on the morning on the telephone. Within a period of two months we had formed a committee with a constitution deeming them apolitical, vetting any sculptor from the outside wishing to join, protecting the natural environment and supporting the local community. Alec Jacob went on his mountain bike forty kilometers to Bindura to collect the forms for entry in NAMA. They have donated pens and pencils to the local school, dragged the women from the kitchen to crochet and the old men from their houses to watch them sculpt. They are respected by the local Council and the police force. I entered them in a competition I judged organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Zimbabwe and one sculptor won a first prize with a sculpture dealing with Football 2010 in South Africa. I wrote articles about them in my column in The Zimbabwean Herald and today overseas buyers reading these articles on the internet come and by their work. They are well represented by Bastian Muller in his exhibitions in Witten and Westfalen Park in Dortmund in Germany. Today the town of Bare revives and the sales of sadza and coca-cola at the sidewalk sadza caf in the main street have increased. As Alec Jacob comments therein: We have never wanted distance to stop us doing what we wanted to do. We have kept away from the arguments which Zimbabwe has recently become turned our back and got on with our work,. Celia came along and she stayed even though she lived in Harare we would work at 5am in the phone planning and putting things into action. Her closeness to both Tengenenge and the National Arts Council helped she was able to drum up support for us from both and also the Korean Embassy she was good friend to the Ambassador and he came to Bhobogrande and brought sculpture,. Our community goes beyond us to the school children the woman the local council the police force in the area and all these people we now with Celia involve in what we do.

Chitungwiza is a high density area outside of Harare a seething supturating mass of unemployment, crime, infectious diseases, prostitution, alcoholism and vagrancy. A new swimming pool and hospital do not disguise these things But the Chitungwiza Arts Centre has meant that rather than engaging in these things a number of young people have turned to stone sculpture to earn their living and spend their time creatively. The Centre supported by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe is well disposed to unmarried mothers, orphans, other social problems- fixtures in Chitungwiza. Social programs are part of the Centers operations benefit concerts for the elderly.

Tafara is a high density backblock of Harare a place where people come out at night, a time of contraband and honky tonk and street stalls and pretty maids for sale all in a row. But Tafara has cleaned itself up - stones and sculpture keep the kids off the street, the women out of bed, the wolf from the door. The dealers from overseas learn their way around and bargain their way through this backblock so people have enough to eat and some substance for their dreams. A Womans Place in Stone Sculpture In Zimbabwe as in most of African the place and space of women has been culturally defined - the woman expected to serve and do for the man and his family. Equality in the work place has expanded the space in which the woman operates but it must be remembered that within the African tradition the woman was the counterpart of man in the fields and during the Liberation struggle his spiritual counterpart as well. Today woman is the counterpart of man in stone sculpture and there are many women who have obtained freedom within the confines of their marriage or family through becoming a sculptor. So woman sculptors have interrogated with success the places and spaces culture and tradition have assigned them as much as the Boardroom, the top job or the power marriage.. Some women sculptors deal with womens issues in their work, some simply sculpt. Women sculptors include Agnes Nyanhongo whose massive works deal with women leaders within traditional African society Mbuya Nehanda among them. Conclusion Globalisation cannot globalize a peoples culture, a peoples identity (Chipangura 2001) vi Over fifty years changes in the stone sculpture factor in such things as Independence, globalization, Pan-Africanism, the emergence of IT, and the internationalization of the art world as an outcome of Biennales and Art Fairs, and the changing social, demographic and economic situations for sculptors Stone sculpture once a profession of a privileged few in terms of representation by individual gallerists and dealers overseas has become the profession of many seen as an answer to earning a living in the hard times which have become Zimbabwe. There have been great names in the stone sculpture which have lent the tradition the fame and admiration given to far longer traditions of sculpture. Mukomberanwa Takawira, Munyaradzi, Ndandarika among them. Today many, many people work on their stones trying to form the stone into the expression of their ideas and the river has not yet run dry. Dominic Benhura now Director of Tengenenge has emerged as the high flyer. Benhura s iconic standing in Zimbabwe and beyond is based on his sculptures which extol the virtures of family life and care for children and also sculptures which deal with human rights and freedom which have been given to the likes of Nelson Mandela. Exhibiting the world over back in Zimbabwe he assists the less fortunate than himself, gives libraries and computers to his old schools./ His work had moved on -in the Harare Biennale 2004 (at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe co-curated by Celia Winter Irving his The Swimmers an Installation with water light and shadows and stone was the

centerpiece. Benhura has give recognition to the fact that the stone sculpture can and has moved on - can be as motivated by curiosity, new materials, new concepts and new conceptual bases for sculpture as sculpture anywhere in the world. Today we live in a global world. What once took a walk to the village can be done at the speed of lightening. We all want international recognition to be known and identified in this world which has no boundaries of culture, language or national definition. How does a tradition of sculpture so distinctively tied to the culture of a country its traditions, spiritual background and physical environment have a lasting presence in this international world where an artist is recognized through presence at a Biennale or Art Fair not through kudos in the country from he or she comes. Zimbabwes stone sculpture not only deals with life as it is lead or has been lead in Zimbabwe - it deals with human emotions, situations and circumstances which are universal. Josia Manzi from Tengenenge may wind into one stone images of crocodiles chasing woman and snakes chasing the same women, But as much as he puts forward a Yao folkloric narrative in consummately stylish work he is talking about jealousy and male rivalry social situations in any culture. It is to be hoped that the students of sculpture and 3 D Studies at COFA, the staff and faculty and also guests have gained some knowledge about Zimbabwe through this Public Lecture, and also its positive approach to arts development exemplified by the success of its stone sculpture.

Bibliography Plangger, Father A. B. (1974). Towards an African Expression of Christian Belief: Serima Mission. Gweru: Mambo Press. Walker, David A. C. (1985). Paterson of Cyrene. Gweru: Mambo Press. Winter Irving, Celia (2007). Following the Footsteps of Wisdom: Merchers Chiwawa Sculptor, with English and Dutch editions. Witten, Germany: Galerie Shona-Art. Winter Irving, Celia (2005). Agnes Nyanghongo Sculptor. Harare: Chapungu Sculpture Park. Winter-Irving, Celia (1993). Contemporary Stone Sculpture from Zimbabwe: Context, Content and Form. Tortula, BVI: Craftsman House. Winter-Irving (2001) Soottie the Cat at Tengenenge. Guruve: Tengenenge Pvt Ltd., English edition. Dutch edition, Amsterdam: Kit Publishers Royal Tropical Museum (2004). Winter Irving, Celia (2001). Tengenenge Art: Sculpture and Painting. Eerbeck, The Netherlands: World Art Foundation.

Winter Irving, Celia (2004). Mike (Mekias) Munyaradzi: The Stones Apprentice. Harare: Friends Forever. Winter Irving, Celia (1991/1995) Stone Sculpture in Zimbabwe: Context, Content and Form. Harare: Roblaw. Winter Irving, Celia. (2004). Pieces of Time. An Anthology of articles written for The Herald and The Daily Mirror, l999-2001. Gweru: Mambo Press.

Catalogues In Praise of Women (2003). Durban: African Art Millenium. African Odyssey: 50 Years of Zimbabwes Stone Sculpture (2006). Durban: Millenium International Series. Soucasne Zimbabwske Socharstvi/Contemporary Zimbabwean Sculpture (2007). With essays by Celia Winter-Irving and Professor Milan Knizac. Prague: National Gallery of Prague. Paixao Africa (African Passion): Contemporary Zimbabwean Sculpture (2005) Monte Palace Tropical Museum Funchal Madeira Portugal. Teresa Gomes Alvaro Duarte Carina Benta Jose Berardo. Essays by Celia Winter Irving and Geert Gabriel Bourgeois Shona Im Park Stone Sculpture from Zimbabwe (2008) Dortmund: Westfalen Park Germany. Essays by Celia Winter Irving, Tom Blomefield and Bastian Muller. Acknowledgements I owe my sincere thanks to Professor Ian Howard Dean College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales for his formal invitation to present this Public Lecture and to Alan Krell, Associate Professor College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales for his assistance. I also thank for their permission to use photographs Snr Jose Berardo, Alvaro Duarte, Carina Bento and Teresa - Berardo Foundation, Monte Palace, Tropical Museum, Funchal Madeira Portugal Presenters of exhibition Paixao Africa (African Passion) Early Sculptures from Tengenenge - Van Tilberg Collection Pretoria, RSA (2005), Bastian Muller Director Galerie Shona-Art Witten Germany Presenter of exhibition Shona Im Park Westfalen Park Dortmund Germany (2008), Tom Blomefield and Dominic Benhura Founder Director and Current Director Tengenenge Sculpture Community Guruve District Zimbabwe and all the artists at Tengenenge.

Notes
i

Celia Winter-Irving Soottie the Cat at Tengenenge Guruve: Tengenenge Pvt Ltd, Zimbabwe (2001). Dutch edition, Amsterdam: KIT Publishers Royal Tropical Museum with German translation by Benno Raestrup. Bochum.

ii

Following the Footsteps of Wisdom : The Sculpture of Merchers Chiwawa . Celia Winter-Irving (2005) Witten, Germany: Galerie Shona-Art.
iii iv v

In Praise of Women. Durban and Capetown: Africa Millenium Foundation. Interview, Germany (2009).

In Celia Winter-Irving. Tom Blomefield: End of an Era, Sky Host, April/June 2008, pp. 31-33.
vi

Titus Chipangura, former Director of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe. Comments given on Celia Winter Irvings Seminar Paper Zimbabwean Art Changes in Cultural Identity. SARIPS Public Seminar Series. Belgravia, Zimbabwe March 19 2001.

*Celia Winter Irving was Australian and had a distinguished career in the visual arts in Australia and then Zimbabwe over the past twenty five years. In Australia she was Director of the Irving Sculpture Gallery and writer on Australian sculpture and art for Craft Arts International, Art Network, Aspect and Arts Queensland. She is a practicing and exhibiting abstract painter. In Zimbabwe, she was Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe from 2004 through 2007. She has published fourteen books on Zimbabwean stone sculpture and contributed lead catalogue essays to many catalogues published by prestigious galleries abroad exhibiting Zimbabwes stone sculpture. She has traveled formally to exhibitions of the stone sculpture in Bologna, Gabrovo Bulgaria, Madeira Portugal, Prague, Olso and Witten and Dortmund Germany in her capacity as writer, curator and lecturer. She has lectured on the stone sculpture at the University of Masvingo, The University of Chinhoyi and at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Her long association and domicile at the Tengenenge Sculpture Community in Guruve has been as writer, lecturer, curator and teacher of painting to young sons of sculptors. She was the lead writer on Zimbabwean art for The Zimbabwe Herald and senior writer for Air Zimbabwes In Flight Journal Sky Host.