MAINGAILA MUVUNDIKA, CHIPYANGO

What we deem "places of work" today are often only synonymous with white collar institutions. Office buildings with people in ties and jackets shuffling papers around. 
We rarely consider the people working in completely alternate environments. Chipyango comes as a part of a wider project titled, "Of Suburbia" which explores how the home and its surrounding areas become a "place of work".
The series examines and critiques whether the care and structure afforded to those working in white collar institutions is the same for those who work in the home. Chipyango becomes a space through which I interrogate how informal and unsupervised labour breeds an environment for the full force of capitalist exploitation to reign free and who is often susceptible to falling victim to this trap.

Bio:

Maingaila Muvundika is a Zambian visual artist and photographer whose work explores how different demographic elements of a community inform how people interact and navigate within the wider community. Through costuming and the production of sets, Maingaila produces staged photographs that are deeply personal and observant. His practice probes aspects of individuality, fashion, beauty standards, spirituality and belonging as a discovery into how identity and sense of self is shaped.

Growing up, Maingaila was always fascinated with his family’s photo album. This is where his fascination with the medium began. In his teens, he started an Instagram account that became a repository of many photographs of his immediate surroundings and observations, from foggy mornings on his way to school or plant matter in his home.

As his practice developed, he began to incorporate his love for fashion and editorials with self portraiture which he is now known for. While pursuing a Banking and Finance degree at Mulungushi University, he turned the camera on his friends. His practice to not only encompass fashion and self-portraiture but to also investigate different sociological issues of class, familial structures and the establishment with a focus on how the shape who we become and when we become. In recent years, his practice has expanded to printmaking and collage further exploring his dissection of what it means to be.                                                                                                                                               

INSTAGRAM : @maingailaaa / https://instagram.com/maingailaaa