Gallery celebrates Operation Restore Legacy
ART in all its forms plays a key role in influencing the direction a society takes, yet art can also mirror events in their communities.
In celebration of Operation Restore Legacy that led to the resignation of Robert Mugabe as President, the National Gallery in Bulawayo will be hosting an exhibition displaying works interpreting events surrounding the operation.
Gallery exhibitions officer, Clifford Zulu said this year’s Zimbabwe Independence Annual exhibition is titled “The Legacy”. In a call issued by the Gallery, Zulu said interested artists should submit works as guided by the title of the exhibition. The deadline for submission of works is 20 April with the exhibition set to be opened on 27 April.
“Inspired by the November 2017 Operation Restore Legacy, the exhibition is a platform encouraging the participation by visual artists throughout the country on National Issues. The exhibition also seeks to captivate the nation to revive the spirit of Ubuntu that saw Zimbabweans from all walks of life expressing their desire for freedom. The exhibition is celebrating our cultural diversity and shared history, further enriching the nation’s Legacy rooted in our cultural heritage and tangible visual culture. The artists are invited to make statements concerning their political observations, developments and inheritance issues, but above all to ask the question whose legacy,” reads a statement from the Gallery.
Zulu said legacy, in the context of Zimbabwe’s independence, implies a tradition, inheritance, culture and influence or one’s visual perspective of liberation. The exhibition aims to be seen as a contemporary guide for creative memory of our Independence celebrations and driving to preserve cultural archives of the country’s inventive activities in the post-independence Zimbabwe, over the passage of time.
“Submissions to the Zimbabwe Independence Annual Exhibition 2018, can be made by any Zimbabwean artist aged over 18 years. Submitted artworks may fall into a wide range of genres associated with visual art and design, these includes painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, video, performance, design, craft, sound and any new media,” read the statement.
Zulu said the Zimbabwe Independence Annual Exhibition series began in 2015 as the Gallery sought to commemorate the country’s liberation through art.
In 2016 the theme of the exhibition was Memorialisation, which spoke to the preservation of memories related to attainment of independence while last year it was “Cherishing national pride through art”.
Last year’s exhibition, which was opened by then Sports and Recreation Minister, Makhosini Hlongwane, featured work from Mgcini Nyoni, Auntony Zinyange, Tinashe Charleson, Talent Kapadza and Knox Chimbetete.
Zulu said they are looking forward to featuring works from over 30 artists as they made a nationwide call and expect artists from all over the country to submit works that would fill the bottom gallery.