Masimba Hwati

Masimba Hwati works across sculpture, sound, performance, video, and text. His recent sound sculpture, Ngoromera, is featured in the new installation of UMMA’s African Art collection, We Write to You About Africa. In this talk, Hwati will reflect on the ways in which the socio-political conditions he encounters shape his creative process with stories from Harare, Detroit, South Carolina, Florida, Weimar, and Vienna. He will also explore the connections that intersect sculpture, sound, performance and ritual in his work and how these connections develop and inform each other.

Hwati is interested in the places where sculpture, sound, and performance meet. His interdisciplinary artistic practice explores various forms and rituals of cultural resistance. Born in Harare, a restless place of precarity and constant flux, Hwati describes his practice as an exploration of the nature of sound and its connection to power negotiation and resistance narratives in post-colonial contexts. 

Following his talk, please join Hwati in the gallery for a performance of Ngoromera during Feel Good Friday at UMMA. 

Masimba Hwati holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is a Ph.D. in Art practice, candidate at the Academy of Fine Art Vienna. He is a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumn class of 2019. He studied and taught sculpture at Harare Polytechnic Art school. Collections Include Manchester Contemporary, University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), Iziko South African National Gallery, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Scott White Contemporary, San Diego, Jorge M Perez Collection Miami Florida, George R. Nnamdi Collection, Detroit Michigan. National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Gervanne & Matthias Leridon Collection. In 2021 he showed and performed at the British textile Biennale in Blackburn, United Kingdom. In 2015 he showed at the Zimbabwean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 56^th edition. He is an honorary research fellow at Rhodes University Fine Arts Department in Grahamstown, SA. Solo, and group shows include Belgium. Zimbabwe, South Africa, Berlin, Weimar, United States, France, and Canada.

Established through the generosity of Dr. Herbert Sloan, the annual Doris Sloan Memorial Program honors one of the Museum’s most ardent friends and supporters, Doris Sloan, a long-time UMMA docent.

The exhibition We Write to You About Africa was developed in consultation with many partners, including the U‑M African Studies Center, the African Students Association, the African Graduate Student Association.

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, and the African Studies Center.