Imagine it’s your wedding, and a white dress isn’t the traditional garment. This one involves, cow shells, masks, and hairstyled to win most creative award. You might be thinking, how unconventionally absurd and you’d be right. But you’d be remiss not to identify with some part of this, as truly astonishing Zambian heritage.
Alliance Francais is currently exhibiting “Fractures Trajectory” with the Fracture being representative of extraction, presentation, disruption and silence: of the indigenous and foreign; this representing the process of recreating meaning and reorientation of the many pasts which have been dispersed across spectrums of existence and understanding.
Now imagine it’s your wedding, imagine Zambia was free, imagine your history books held all the depths of our nation’s historical heritage good and bad. Now let go of the past and venture into a world where creatives are working to recapture that history.
The stories that bind us together are to be told, they are being drawn, their photos are being taken, their clothes are being reconstructed but their meaning is being preserved. 2023 truly what a time to be Zambian and witnessing all her transformation first hand.
When I look around I can’t help but thinking of the renaissance. The Renaissance that took place in Italy was trying to reform culture and I truly believe we are at the gates of the path of our own renaissance. Seeing this creative endeavour made me proud because it’s been an ongoing project and a reminder that the labour is laboured from a place of love.
Love for Zambia to be authentic, to have an identity, to be joined together by our own history, our own stories, our own inventions all through our own eyes for a more expansive and beautiful experience of this beautiful landlocked country I’m proud to call home.
The revolution is upon us and it’s an honour feeling like I have front row seats to witness live Zambia’s very own renaissance.
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