Ngoromera

Subject Matter:

Notions of power and resistance to power are at the forefront  of Masimba Hwati’s mixed-media installations. This one, titled  Ngoromera—meaning “to fight” in Shona, the artist’s mother  tongue—consists of both found and sourced objects, many of which  produce sound. 

Hwati, a recent graduate of the U-M Stamps School of Art & Design  (MFA ‘19), is interested in the flexible nature of sound and the way it  bends itself around obstacles, which he likens to the way individuals  are forced to configure themselves around dominant powers:  

“When people don’t have enough resources or enough privilege to  confront something, they move around it, they dance around it,  they play around it, so that they modify the power of that thing. The  idea of struggle and resistance for me as an individual has always  been like sound … Sound doesn’t really confront, it goes around,  it weaves itself around, sometimes it envelopes, sometimes it goes  through the cracks or the gaps. Coming from Zimbabwe, I see  people move like sound a lot, I see people think in very sonic ways.”  (Masimba Hwati, interview with Mayela Rodriguez, Penny Stamps  Speaker Series, July 2020).

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