The Role of Women in Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture: Women Sculptors
This essay has been adaptred with the kind permission of the Director of Chapungo from Chapungu: The Qurterly Newsletter of the Chapungu Sculpturer Park, Harare, Zimbabwe 3:1 (1995): 6-9.
As was demonstrated in Part One of this feature, female artists such as Agnes Nyanhongo, Colleen Madamombe, Alice Musarara, Mavis Mabwe and Locadia Ndandarika have developed their careers and purposefully directed their own lives. However, it is interesting to ascertain the reaction to this process from their male colleagues The three Takawira brothers (John, Bernard and Lazarus) have used women as a source of much of their work and attribute this urge to the influence of their mother - a powerful woman who brought them up virtually alone. As such, they have an interesting perspective on the changing issue of gender. John Takawira tended to portray women in traditional roles and enhanced the qualities traditionally revered by Shona society. Bernard Takawira pays great respect to these qualities but also examines the challenues sresented bv the positive aspects of these. His sculpture is frequently infused with his Christian beliefs, but once again, it is the strength of women that emerges; their positions of respect and not their submission. Lazarus Takawira portrays women as sources of beauty, grace and dignity but instils in them great independence. His women seem almost to be from a world devoid of men. All three men are of a generation which might find change in the roles of men and women somewhat difficult. However, perhaps because of the example of independence set by their own mother, they have been supportive of most of the recent developments. Bernard Takawira explains, "To start with I could not accept change. When I saw the Zimbabwean woman changing, it was like l ssZas attacking them for changing. I wanted them to be what tlley were, what l saw in my lands. h1 some respects I then realised that this was not the best for anybody. When change comes it must be accepted when it is good ch ange. Today, I think people will want to see a situation where people are regarded and looked at, not so much because they are women or men, but because of who they are." He does however have some concerns and these are expressed in his work. He is wary of the old ways being totally overthrown by Western values without proper consideration for the relevance of such ideals. "I know certain things that were expected of women which were good things have fallen away today because of the new order we have. I would like to see a situation where the very best things in traditional life should not be sacrificed for the new. We would be stronger if we kept our strong parts and adapted the strong parts of another society - we would be much stronger." country is that the perceived strength of women lay in their polite, considerate behaviour. They did not bow down to men alone - they showed respect to men and women through actions such as the one depicted in The Art Of Humility. It was this behaviour and for these qualities that women themselves commanded reverence and maintained a sense of the essential difference between the genders. It would appear that the blurring of the roles rather than the change in women's activities has the potential to create feelings of insecurity and anxiety. Nicholas Mukomberanwa has, throughout his career, portrayed women in positions of power and respect. He has emphasised the gifts and skills naturally accorded them; once more, the essential difference between the sexes. These skills may be ones only manifest in women's relationships with men or families, dependent on their roles as wives or mothers, but nevertheless Mukomberanwa feels that it is in these areas that w omen should be paid particular tribute. He believes them to be elements which could be maintained with no detrimental effect on their overall personal development. As such, the women in his work are often shown in activities previously associated with their gender or demonstrating the qualities traditionally attributed to th orn Describing two particular examples, Mukomberanwa explains "In the sculpture Cheme7ere Mukadzi -A Woman Is A Woman Regardless Of Her Age (1989, 0palStone) I am trying to show not a particular woman, or a type of woman, but the essence of a woman or womanhood. It is this essence whether it is found in a young woman or even an old woman, or in a mother or a wife that can give man that which he needs to feel complete. I found it was important to me to show in this sculpture that sort of dignity in a woman who knows how to look after a man and a family - it doesn't matter if she is old or young or beautiful or ugly." Describing Old Woman Preparing Snuff (1985, Springstone), he says "Snuff is very important in ceremonial occasions and a man will take snuff before the spirit comes. It must be a special kind of snuff and it is usually prepared by the older women. What I wanted to show here was really the authority in the older woman - she is doing an important job and only she knows how to do it properly." Rather than indicating an hostility towards, or a sense of threat from the changes sought by today's women in Zimbabwe, these words suggest a desire for the process to develop with care and consideration. The overall aim would be to achieve a balance truly relevant and workable within Shona society today. There is a belief that the traditional values were maintained for so long because of the esteem in which they were held by both men and women - it might be a grave mistake to overthrow these and adopt new ideals with no root in the nation's past. The artist Tapfuma Gutsa has been viewed as revolutionary in many areas of the genre. He set mber of young sculptors working today -omen was as challenging as other new _ _ o J politicised, his sculpture has captured women as leaders - of people and of new ways of thinking - as well as showing them in day-to-day life which, through its simplicity, expresses his love for the unchampioned, quieter activities of women. Gutsa places his political work in a historical context by saying "Most of the history we learnt had heroes - people who had come from Europe and done things here - and our own ancestors were looked upon as villains. And yet, they were actually trying to defend something which thev deemed their own. So, left alone, they were the male African villains. Women were never mentioned at all." A particular sculpture by Gutsa, Ya Asantewa (1989, Serpentine), pinpoints the role some women held as leaders in African history and highlights this powerful strength inherent in the tribal woman. "Ya Asantewa ruled in something like the 16th or 17th century when the first explorers landed on the West African coast. There were wars that were meant to subjugate the rulers on the cross line. This woman stood up to the intruders and up to the end of of her reign, nobody dared invade them .... It has nothing to do with a particular individual It' s more a celebration of women who have achieved things in history. Now achievements can be measured on different levels; the warrior queen is just as important as the mother who cooked for the guerrillas when they were fighting for their country." ' Women, or simply the female form, are used in the depiction of universal strength and human ambition in monumental works by Gutsa such as The Galaxy (1990, Opal Stone) and The Wish To Fly (1991, Opal Stone). Both share a sense of breaking free from the stone, the unending human appetite for discovery and desire to escape earthly restrictions. However, it is perhaps in his tender portraits of more familiar women that Gutsa reveals his most personal ideas. I istening To Two works by Bernard Takawira which perhaps express this dilemma most clearly are TheArt Of HHmility (1987, Springstone) and The Lady Of The Day (1988, Springstone). The earlier work shows a woman with her head bowed down; the image barely breaks out of the natural form of the rock. The later piece is quite different. The woman's head emerges from the stone and she stands tall. Her hair is depicted as long and free flowing and her face is full of pride and determination. However, both women have great dignity and strength. Takawira explains, (The Art Of Humilit~) "I'm talking specifically about the Shona woman. I'm not talking about her borrowed or learned culture. I'm talking about her, undisturbed in her traditional way. She had to learn to be humble and to please her husband and it was expected that she measure up to a certain degree of humility and it was all a joy to do it. Showing humility took the form of bendingdown the whole body, orturning aside one's head, or bending one's knees; and even today in Chiweshe, for instance, when women greet people they respect they will hold their eyes downwards and talk without looking at the person." (The Lady Of The Day) "I grew up with a distinctive image of woman, starting of course with my mother. Women were themselves - calm, polite, humble but nevertheless with their own ways of showing their womanhood. Today there is a new breed of modern woman - confident, dominant, outgoing, questioning and often well educated, who will adopt roles which in the past were exclusively for men. There is an element of speed and sharp movement in this sculpture and of course the new fashionable hair, which is so prevalent today." Bernard Takawira clearly does not support the oppression of women. A fact which only becomes clear to visitors after a time spent in the The Baby Kick (1988, Opal ] Stone) has touched ] audiences all over the l world with its poignant depiction of a young l mother paused in deep : concentration as she places her hand on her stomach and feels the l new life stirring inside her. Melancholy Girl (1988, Opal Stone) has a similar universality but this lies in its air of intimacy and personal seclusion. The Lullnby; (1990, Serpentine) is a beautiful portrait of a mother singing to the young infant she cradles in her arms. Both mother and child emerge from the same piece unified by the curvaceous swing in t comforting rhythm of the woman' Gutsa poignantly touches on the ma for this piece when he says "We w~ close with my mother. When I adolescent I would sometimes get very uptight. She is the person I WOt - and lie on her lap and cry my head Unlike some examples of women's emancipation elsewhere in the world, there seems little evidence amongst sculptors in Zimbabwe of antagonism or painful conflict. It appears to be more a case of a readjustment of roles and responsibilities (true, initiated by women), whilst retaining the mutual respect between the sexes. An interesting case currently taking place is the reaction in the opposite direction - from women, in response to the depiction of their sex by younger male sculptors. It is in their concern over the current fascination bv such sculptors for the female nude (often distorted to their own tastes) that the women reveal their desire for restraint and consideration along the lines set by the older values. Colleen Madamombe comments "The torsos are done in the wrong way. Some of these men are carving the torso in ways that they think women should look like -- enlarging areas of their bodies and so on." Agnes Nyanhongo adds "I myself question why these men carve such figures - are they proud of us or are they making fun? What sort of thing are they exposing to us? It is a question that must be answered by men. Why, and how do they feel? Women may not necessarily want to complain about these works, but we should know thereasons for them." Colleen Madamombe relates an incident which demonstrates the duplicity behind such exposure. "There was a man who carved a complete torso of a man and the others told him 'You must take that off' - and he did. He made it into a female torso! I always portray a woman wearing clothes dresses or something. Not like these torsos - with arms and heads chopped off and everything else shown. There is more respect in the way that the older artists carve women in their Debate on these issues between male and female sculptors is limited. To a Western audience this might provide cause for concern, but the obvious understanding of one another's side so far demonstrated by most Zimbabwean sculptors ensures that, despite this current lack of discussion, the process receives input from both sides. Speaking about the arrival of independence after years of painful struggle, Agnes Nyanhongo stated "It was independence for everybody - for men and for ~romen. We had to start again and respect each other equally." Through comments such as these and, more importantly, through their work, Zimbabwe's sculptors are demonstrating, often leading, the evolving shift in positionsbetween men and women in their new society. Whilstrespecting the ways reveredby theirpredecessors, they are unafraid to work towards a new, more flexible society; one which is ready to meet the demands placed on it by the economically developed world with a strong sense of identity and self-confidence.