Chiedza Pasipanodya: Ndafunga Dande (Thoughts of Home)
Dande is a memory and a fable, a translation and a portal, a place that exists nowhere – only here and somewhere.
Ndafunga Dande (Thoughts of Home) resides in that here and somewhere. It is a space where megalithic boulders, suspended fruits, and elements of vernacular Shona architecture open a broader conversation about place, materiality, and storytelling. The exhibition is a grouping of labour-intensive, hand-built ceramic sculptures, alongside an audio composition which investigates the ways in which alternate histor(ies) are built and transmitted. This work is part of the artist’s ongoing inquiry into notions of sustenance and permanence such as: What kinds of remembrance does clay make possible? Where and what gets to be remembered? Can repetition keep a person, place or thing alive?
Ndafunga Dande is a line from the song Dzoka Uyamwe by musician Oliver Mtukudzi. “Dzoka Uyamwe,” literally translated from ChiShona means “come back to suckle.” The song tells the story of an emigrant who has travelled far from his ancestral home (Dande) and his mother suggests he returns home to where he is loved and missed.
Meet the artists
Chiedza Pasipanodya
Chiedza Pasipanodya lives and works in Toronto, Canada and Harare, Zimbabwe and their research-based practice emerges from southern African ways of being, knowing and aesthetics and is informed by African pottery and social practice.
They are committed to elevating narratives which might otherwise be forgotten and misremembered, especially the cultural productions of people of African descent. Through exhibition-making, sculpture, conversation, collaboration, and writing, they have developed an Afro-diasporic practice that considers how and if connection, repair, and retrieval are possible through the making of objects and transmutation of materials.
Chiedza completed a BFA (Hons) in Criticism and Curatorial Practices at OCAD University in 2019. They have exhibited at Nia Centre for the Arts, Xpace Cultural Centre, and Whippersnapper Gallery. Chiedza was a Toronto Biennial of Art Curatorial Fellow (2022) and has curated exhibitions with The Art Gallery of Peterborough, Aspace Gallery, BAND Gallery, and Nuit Blanche.
For the month of June, Chiedza was in residence at the AGB’s pottery studio creating the works for this exhibition working with the Gallery’s studio education team Michelle Lynn and Heather Kuzyk, and alongside the AGB studio artist members.
Gallery
