DZIMBANHETE Arts Centre founder Chikonzero Chazunguza has called on stakeholders in the arts sector to ensure the promotion of Afro-centric values as part of the decolonisation process desperately needed in the sector.
BY LORRAINE MUROMO
Chazunguza told NewsDay that Sub-Saharan Africa’s arts sector was under siege from eurocentricism.
“Culture can be colonised and it is still very much colonised. There is need for liberation from eurocentricism. The books and approaches to art are not at all based on our African way of seeing things and the shift of our culture towards eurocentricism is quite apparent in the arts sector,” he said.
“Our art and creativity needs direction and relevance. Relevance to our own culture is utmost important in all art forms.”
Chazunguza said Western influence had crippled the way the arts industry was performing in Africa and there was need to encourage native narratives as a way of presenting Africa to the world.
“Our visual arts have remained too eurocentric for a long time, both in subject matter and presentation and we, at Dzimbanhete Art Interactions, are creating a platform for home-grown discourses,” he said.
“We have to change the paradigms in our arts education and culture. Though it is not enough to push for arts in schools, when the idea penetrates schools, the content also has to change.”
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Chazunguza’s multi-media art works raise searching questions about the post-colonial condition and the unstable role and nature of art in its post-colonial context.
