Terrence Musekiwa
Today's Youth, 2017

A Sculptor’s Prescient Portrait of Zimbabwean Youth
Hyperallergic, 12 Dec. 2017, Robin Sher

“For the past two decades Zimbabwe has experienced economic decline. In large part, this is due to the country’s long-serving dictatorial president Robert Mugabe, who was finally ousted by a coup this week following a 37-year reign. One of the many detrimental legacies Mugabe leaves behind is an 80% unemployment rate among young Zimbabweans. For Musekiwa, this state of affairs provided the impetus for his figures, which don’t carry individual titles but rather are named as a group, “the youth of today.”

At a glance, Musekiwa’s little guys, each around a foot in height, don’t appear too forlorn. This can be attributed to their gangly bodies made from sturdy plastic tubes that Musekiwa moulds using a blowtorch into various states of playful repose. The sense of joy evoked by the figures seems at odds with the reality Musekiwa seeks to represent. But their appearance only tells part of the story. The tubular bodies, for instance, are pre-formed two-liter cooking oil containers that get discarded due to imperfections. In turn, young Zimbabweans repurpose the tubes as containers for recreationally drinking cough syrup — an unfortunate habit that has developed among Musekiwa’s generation as a means to help pass the time.

A mixture of earth and glue binds the stone and plastic. For Musekiwa, there’s a great symbolism in this. “The world we’re living in is not only natural, but also contains things that come from other places,” he explained over the phone. In reconciling the sentimental sculptural traditions of his people’s past with elements that capture the perilous present, Musekiwa has managed to create a prescient set of sculptures, which, especially in light of recent events, offer a glimpse into a more optimistic future. “To my father [stone carving] was a business,” said Musekiwa. “I have taken it as a storytelling material.”

Standing on a line, not being on either side, 2017, Installation at Catinca Tabacaru, New York

Today’s Youth (vakomana vechimhanjemhanje), carved stone heads, preformed plastic bottles, plastic cement, earth, metal coil, wire, and other found materials, each approx. 62 × 40 × 29 cm