Through his textile pieces, Moffat Takadiwa weaves strong connections between critiques of consumerism and inequality, by means of the collection and organization of post-industrial waste and African cultural traditions – particularly those from Zimbabwe, his home country. By gathering and sorting discarded fragments of everyday products, packaging, and various materials, Takadiwa creates multicolored objects whose forms sometimes evoke cellular organelles, fungi, or enlarged microorganisms, and at other times suggest, through their beauty and the intricate embroidery on the fabric, ritualistic artifacts, totems, or symbols.
In his project specially conceived for the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, Takadiwa significantly amplifies the scale of his work, drawing on the symbolic power of Noah’s Ark to comment on the cycles of world destruction and the imperative of its reconstruction after the cataclysm. While the Ark served as Noah’s refuge and a means of preserving species for the restoration and repopulation of the world post-flood, the immersive structure of Takadiwa’s piece, which envelops the audience in a textile blanket coated with plastic and metal waste, presents itself as a vessel destined to transport the individual into a future governed by a new cosmic cycle. By replacing the Ark’s storage model with that of a portal, meant to demarcate spaces with different functions, Takadiwa emphasizes the idea of crossing, transit, and passage. The sound of the mbira, a musical instrument with idiophonic qualities composed of metal lamellas of varying sizes, widely disseminated in several Sub-Saharan African countries, inspires the energy of transformation and the knowledge of nature necessary for healing the territory devastated by colonial traumas (symbolized by the discarded fragments).
The work invites a reflective exercise on the inseparability of capitalism, racism, and environmental collapse, the mechanisms of inequality production in the post-independence context of Global South countries, particularly those in the African continent, and the re-signification of rejected material (waste) into aesthetic material (artistic object). Equally, it highlights contemporary challenges in confronting the climate crisis and suggests, through the philosophy of Ubuntu, a transition to the future based on sustainability and care. Present in various Bantu languages of Niger-Congo origin, Ubuntu consists of a system of thought and practices that emphasize the redistribution of resources, collectivity, cooperation, and interdependence among people.
