This Thursday, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe will host the opening of Portrait of Zimbabwe/Mifananidzo yeZimbabwe, an exhibition of over 80 photographic prints by the late Chicago Dzviti.
Dzviti was born in Shamva in 1961, and from these rural settings, he developed an interest for photography. He later pursued a course at Harare Polytechnic in 1987.
This marked the beginning of a career that was only a few years in length, but illustrious in detailing Zimbabwean life; with the depiction of society, rites, rituals and roles laid out with a powerful objectivity which narrated urban, periurban and rural lives to the same degree.
Dzviti’s works substantiate the celebrated personality within the public realm, in the same gaze with the everyman. Unfortunately, Dzviti passed on in 1995, before he could witness his own works in a gallery.
This body of work focuses on a period in the early 1990s; offering a window into what life was in the formative years of the post-colonial dispensation, a historiography of what everyday life was for older generations, which may serve as a time capsule for the youngest Zimbabweans.
Portraits of Zimbabwe/Mifananidzo yeZimbabwe is made possible by the support of the Embassy of the United States of America and the University of Rochester.
The exhibition is co-curated by Dr. Jennifer Kyker, Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Arthur Satz Department of Music at the University of Rochester and Fadzai Muchemwa, Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
Dr. Kyker is a Fulbright scholar, and the exhibition is part of the work she is doing under the program. Led by the U.S. Department of State in partnership with 49 binational commissions and 160 countries worldwide, Fulbright offers unique educational and cultural exchange programs for passionate and accomplished students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds.
The exhibition will be open to the public on Friday the 30th of May 2025.
Mcheno and More remains the leading blog in Zimbabwe with a particular focus on Fashion, Visual Art, and Culture. Dzviti’s exhibition further proves the importance of capturing moments in time, for a definite future. On Thursday we shall all be brought together by one man’s efforts to document his lived experiences.
He might not be with us, but Chicago Dzviti’s name will live forever in that regard. The painters, sculptors, designers, and stylists of our time deserve to be immortalized; and that’s why we exist. In that definite future, let the creatives in that future refer back to Mcheno and More for inspiration.
