The National Gallery of Zimbabwe will, this week, be opening 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, which he then pursued a course at Harare Polytechnic in 1987. This marked the beginning of a career that was just short of a decade 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.
This body of work set to showcased 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.
Dzviti’s works substantiate the celebrated personality within the public realm, in the same gaze with the everyman. However, the photojournalist passed on in 1995, before he could witness his own works in a gallery.
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.
The exhibition will be open to the public on Friday the 30th of May 2025.
