Zacharaha Magasa (Zimbabwe)

BIO//

Zacharaha was born in Zimbabwe to parents escaping conflict in Mozambique and economic strife in Malawi. When he was a young adult he left Zimbabwe for South Africa during a time of huge economic stress in the country. The idea of journey – voluntary and involuntary being part of an inevitable human experience is crucial to the ideas he is developing in his work. He uses recycled tyres to create sculptures and his work is driven by lines of direct and indirect dialogues of everyday life. He is interested in notions of socio-politics, environmental decay, territorial or land and cultural resistance.

PROJECT//

His sculptures are assembled from reconditioned and treated vehicle tyres. The material is crucial to the storytelling about how people move and why people move in my work. Zacharaha proposes to develop a large-scale public installation from assembled, treated and painted tyres in response to the local urban and natural environment in Estonia, which will enable audiences to enter the work and connect through the work in a way that is both immersive, uniquely experiential and shareable. He will introduce painting, carving and design in the tyres in conversation with the local setting, using research into local traditional patterns and colours as well as those of communities of other cultures that Estonians engage with. Life is a difficult and complex journey we all share.