Miriro Mwandiambira (Zimbabwe)

Bio

Born 1994 Miriro Mwandiambira, in Harare, Zimbabwe. Mwandiambira studied at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe School of Visual Arts and Design in 2014 at diploma level and later proceeded to do her Master of Fine Art in Public Spheres at EDHEA in Switzerland 2021 where I graduated with an Honours. Degree through the Hans Joerg Wyss Scholarship and was awarded The FONDATION BEA Prix for Young Artists Award. Miriro immediately began experimenting with other media developing sculptural, installation and performance oriented projects. At the core of Mwandiambira’s practice is her commitment to being a voice of women in the contemporary social and cultural context of urban Zimbabwe, a tense and urgent mix of global pop culture, with strong traditional roots and beliefs. At the same time, Mwandiambira, asserts the domain of woman’s work and creativity into the space of art, in a way that does not entertain a compromise with or deference to the male dominated mediums and fields like painting and sculpture. Sewing, fashion, hair design and elements of self-decoration are legitimized and the divide between public and private domains is disrupted. In the past few years, Miriro’s work has attracted the attention of both international curators and collectors, with a strong performance and installation practice, which has secured her the place at the prestigious RAW Academy in Dakar, Senegal in 2018 and recently ARP Residency Project 9EDITION 2023 in ROME, Italy. Mwandiambira carries a very strong passion for writing and expressing myself through performance practice and developing sculptural work that is interactive. Mwandiambira got educated regardless of the odds of marginality and now holds the privilege to teach the next hopeless girl within her reach that anything is possible.

Project

Over the years of my practising visual art and performance, I developed a curiosity that I want to further investigate different cultural performances and undocumented traditional household practices and their similarities between cultures. I am interested in producing sculptures and perhaps use some of them for performance work that questions the interconnectedness of femininity in household controls over traditional norms between Estonia and Harare. I have been working with Acrylic Artificial Nails to come up with a significant soft sculpture whereby I use materials that are foreign to me but I see them in my day to day activities and interactions. I am inspired by “acquired feminine aesthetics”, even though I would like to call them prosthetic as there is an alienation that is associated with it but has become a part of us as humans. I am talking about prosthetic beauty in relation to the naturalness of being, and relation with traditions. How Estonian women are perceived aesthetically in a household/community? How is this connected to Harare standards of beauty and traditional norms and values? The boundaries of ‘societal-standards” between Africa and Europe?. I am looking into asking a number of questions regarding feminine ecologies, standards of beauty and foreign aesthetics and when one has to carry their identity and to what extent ?borderline self-empowering. In September- October 2023 I was part of Artist in Residency Project-ROME, Italy where I had several performances in public spaces and had the opportunity to continue my research based work in different communities in Harare. It sort of shaped my methodology in continuing to produce work that is based on materials that are sourced every day. I am honest in my research and I work with materials that I am closely related to and feel very sentimental about them.