“Sibathontisele” at 15: Zimbabwean Ethnopolitics and the Work of Owen Maseko

Art Curator and Scholar Zoè Samudzi offers a reflection on the ethnopolitical and historical implications of “Sibathontisele” (2010-present), a series of paintings by Zimbabwean artist and genocide survivor Owen Maseko. The talk traces a throughline between the Gukurahundi genocide (1982-87), the subject matter of the series, and the relationship between Maseko’s repression as a Ndebele artist and the Zimbabwean state’s historical revisionism regarding the genocide.

Zoé Samudzi is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of African-American and Africana Studies at The Ohio State University. She is also a Global Blackness Fellow with the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Johannesburg, and a fellow with African Museums and Heritage Restitution (AFRIMUHERE). Her work engages visuality, genocide memory, and African postcoloniality. Samudzi is an associate editor with Parapraxis Magazine, a popular magazine dedicated to psychoanalytic thinking.