MULTI-AWARD-WINNING and decorated found object creative Tawanda Takura recently realised a prestigious and testimonial achievement as he added to his display cabinet the 13th Cassirer Welz award.
The organisers of the competition, Bag Factory Artists Studios, in collaboration with Strauss and Co Education and Fine Art Auctioneers, in addition to the winners’ trophy awarded Takura a residency and solo exhibition at the Big Factory Artists Studios in Johannesburg.
Takura could not hold his excitement and reached NewsDay Life & Style to share his joy and plans to settle in Mzansi for two months at the Big Factory Artists Studios.
Speaking from his residency, Takura said: “I feel honoured and humbled to receive this Cassirer Welz award in South Africa, a competition in which artists from all Sadc countries participated. To come first and win gives me more confidence and recognition in what I am doing and I am grateful.
“The winning piece is titled Chirombomwari, meaning demigods. It talks about spiritual activities which we witness everyday and sometimes take part in our societies. It is made from old stiletto heels, leather and strings.
“With this award, I am going to South Africa for a three-month residency programme, after which I will be holding my second solo exhibition. My first solo exhibition was at the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe 2023.”
Takura has, in his display cabinet, an award from the 2014 Heritage competition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, the Chinese Year of the Horse Competition Award, Nama Awards 2024 kwan22 and this year’s Cassirer Welz Award in South Africa.
“This seems to be a big award and I am sure this time around, things will move for the betterment of my creative career,” he said.
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“Entries to the competition came from all over Africa and I find it as an honour and privilege to be plucked from a contingent of highly professional creative inputs from Johannesburg and Mzansi at large, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria.”
Takura, the Visual Arts Mixed Art category winner at the 22nd edition of the National Arts Merit Awards, was born and raised in Chitungwiza and trained as a shoemaker.
His interest in found objects and broken shoes was born out of the desire to fight poverty and avoid extremes in deprivation.
He believes that every broken shoe carries the history of its owner and his profile.
It is through this philosophic and disruptive mindset that he has polished up his capabilities as a drawing, paint and installations creative.
Takura returns to South Africa after scooping awards and numerous residencies through his mountings and installations, which were blunt protests against discrimination, gender-based violence and xenophobia and yet generating entertainment and a terrible sense of humour.
In addition to that his works have helped in creating harmony among traditionally known to be hostile relationships.
“Sometimes combined with other found objects and texts, these new figurations carry the subtle but persistent smell of rubber and leather. Hollow, hybrid, tortured and distorted, sometimes cornivalesque, Takura’s work comments on socio-political injustice and often takes clear aim at what he sees as the extractive and hypocritical practices of charismatic churches . . .” Bag Factory described him.
Recycling art has helped a lot in keeping environmental cleanliness as well as championing several other industrial innovations.
