Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti
Barnabas is a cultural worker, an art historian and a public scholar with research interests spanning from the histories of the early modern art workshops of Southern Africa to the contemporary art practices in Africa and its diasporic communities. His current research focusses on artistic genealogies traceable to the early modern schools of Southern Africa. He has written several exhibition reviews, opinion pieces, and he has published multiple interviews/conversations with artists and curators. He has also published reports on recent migration issues and trends in Southern Africa.
Back and forth like an oscillating pendulum: the story of a regional/transnational artistic lineage across Southern Africa
An artistic lineage connects Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe through some of the region’s now defunct art schools. The lineage is sustained by Shepherd Ndudzo, who carries on with a woodcarving legacy passed on from his predecessors. Central to the lineage’s layered story are the reciprocal migration journeys recalling oscillating pendulums among the three countries. Artistic movement in Africa is still understudied and overshadowed by the South-North migrations of African artists to the cultural capitals of Europe and America. Barnabas is trying to make sense of the artists’ journeys, employing mobility to reconstruct their fragmented biographies. His research aims to disrupt the absence of such narratives in the canon of art history.
Have a look at Barnabas’ research poster about his project.