Tatenda Chidora :
Defining An Artist
There’s a difference between a photographer and an artist, by definition and intention.
Consider this: the first creates images with a particular purpose whether it be to document evidence, preserve a familial experience or contribute to brand identity through commercial work. The latter, uses the photograph as a gateway into the investigation and exploration of the nuanced human experience.
Award-winning Zimbabwe-born visual artist, Tatenda Chidora, is developing a visual language nestled at the intersection of these two worlds. Born 1988, in the capital city of Harare - he relocated to Johannesburg at the age of eighteen, where he encountered new modes of creativity and self expression.
Our conversation begins with a moment of reflection on history and aesthetics, the philosophical study of beauty and taste - within the current context of Africa’s renaissance in the global cultural zeitgeist.
“Historically, we were not allowed to contribute to aesthetics in a
meaningful way. As people who live in Africa, we have the social
responsibility to define what Africanism is.”
Now, contemporary artists and scholars alike are careful as to not make the same mistake as Western scholars in the past and homogenise Africa, or deploy the perspective that ‘Africa is a country’. Instead, there is an acknowledgement of not only the shared history of colonialism and patriarchal culture but also the links formed through centuries of migration and ancient systems of knowledge sharing.
Tatenda has adopted this ever-adapting term, africanism, as the guiding ideology in his practice and way of life. Within this framework, Chidora and his contemporaries are reclaiming, unlearning and reconstructing what it means to be African. This is particularly important in these times as the world, more than ever before, is paying attention.
His most notable body of work, If Covid Was A Colour, won the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Humanity Vol. 5 series award, re-emphasizing the significance of voices from the continent on the global stage. It is through this work that we delve deeper into Chidora’s image-making process and his concerns around black masculinity.
“During the pandemic, it became quite clear that we were immersed in it. I was seeing a lot of photojournalism and nothing quite conceptual for us to reflect on.” Tatenda says. “My challenge was to translate what was happening through imagery. I premeditated on these concepts and tried to visualise what it would look like.” The project depicts black dark-toned men cloaked in cobalt blue speedos and personal protective equipment such as masks, all under a complementary blue-sky. Simultaneously, the surreal photographs emit a sense of escapism and looming, against the backdrop of a transformative global event. The subjects strengthen this duality, representing both an echo of strength and an unwavering vulnerability.
“The basis of all my personal work is an investigation of masculinity. Being Zimbabwean,
they are certain things men cannot do and be perceived through. It is in the training of
culture and society. There’s a rigidness to the definition of what a man is. In my images, every man has an element of softness that cannot be perceived through the normal definition of manhood.”
It is with this understanding that Chidora decided to street-cast for the project instead of recruiting models. Through this, he encountered individuals who had their own preconceived notions of manhood, to participate in bringing these ideas to life.
“It is this rigidness that has broken communities and families. [In society] you have to be this man, I wanted to introduce calmness. A word rarely used when speaking about black masculinity.”
Whilst making the series, he shares how the men he was photographing had to navigate their learned isms and unravel the rigid notions of maleness, in real time. The men are depicted in states of embracing, an unfamiliar and vulnerable experience. For the subjects, it became an instinctive performance of being introduced to a new dimension of masculinity. It is in these quiet and surreal occurrences that the process of making the work is the work.
By confronting and dismantling these inherited structures of being a man, Tatenda Chidora is building something new - something softer.
Images courtesy of the artist ©Tatenda Chidora
