Exploring love and life through creative art

Love and life can be expressed differently, bearing the same message. One of the ways to explore the two intricacies is through unalike blends of artworks – including photography, painting, and needlework. This was all too evident at an art exhibition at The Drum in Dar es Salaam’s Msasani suburbs.

Themed Love and Life, the exhibition kicked off on February 18, 2022, and is set to end later today (February 25). The entrance to the gallery was decorated by a small table on which drinks of different kinds were served by a middle-aged woman wearing a black short dress with silver ornaments. She elegantly handed glasses to each participant who arrived at the event.

In the Drum gallery hung 23 art pieces, most of them glued on three walls of the gallery room with a few lined on a two-sided wooden wall situated in the middle of the gallery. Four artists with different stories and unalike talents related to Love displayed their works that reflected the main theme of the exhibition.

The growing crowd gathered at the gallery to feast their eyes on cryptic messages behind the artworks, others interacted with the creatives to decipher what the art meant.

On the first wall were five artworks made by Safinia Kimbokota, a senior artist at the University of Dar es Salaam. Her artworks were all made of fine Vitenge. She paid attention to the needlework on the colourful fabric as she brought different features to life through them.

On the side of every of her artwork were small descriptions printed on white papers glued to a wall. These words were supported by a mini-biography of Safinia that detailed her professional history. Safinia’s works of art were titled in both Kiswahili and English whereas her collection included Layers, Mapenzi Ndi Ndi Ndi, Bed Wall; Bed Bridge and Mother’s Love.

On the second wall facing the gallery exit were five paintings crafted by Lembulisi Gano. His artworks emanated different meanings to the theme and so did the titles of his collection. The titles included Old as Stone, The Feminine, Deep Loneliness, Far Too Close and Untalked Talk.

The third artist who headlined the exhibition was Imani Nsamila, an environment photographer. He displayed about six photographs on the third wall highlighting moments related to the exhibition themes. Titles he gave to his photographs include ‘The Lovers’ featuring two zebras resting their heads on one another.

His other works at the showcase include happy children vs sewage pipeline, Lake Tanganyika sunset, breathtaking peaks of the Uluguru mountain and Kisitu’s Joyful street food chef.

In the middle part of the gallery were seven photographs hung on an artificial wooden wall. This collection was by James Kuzwa, a storytelling photographer. His collection mostly focused on the life part in the two themes of the exhibition. It included Lishe Bora, Jua Linatua, Mchumia Juani which was a series of three photographs telling the same story, Baharia and Ndoto Zangu.

Speaking to The Beat, Safinia, one of the artists headlining the event revealed the messages behind some of the works in her collection that took two weeks to make.

“I made these pieces linking them to relatable matters in love and life. For instance, the first piece ‘Layers’ shows how people’s relationships and lives differ from one another. Whereas one might be in the happiest stage in their intimate relationship, the other person might be in a sad and energy-consuming relationship, same goes for life,” she explains.

According to James, his photographs generally reflect frozen moments whose stories deserve to be recorded to serve different purposes. He gave a background on Ndoto Zangu, one of the photographs in his collection turned into black and white where three pupils are shown cycling from school.

“I met these students when they were heading back to their households from school. You could paint their dreams from the way they are determined to gain new knowledge. They told me that they have to ride about 20 kilometers each day: 10 kilometers from home to school and 10 kilometers from school to home,” he narrates.

James also shed light on the three picture series on which a man holding a hoe was displayed.

“There was a campaign to enhance sisal plantation last year and in efforts to do that, I took part in a sisal farming project in a village called Kiomboi situated in Tanga region. In that project, I decided to freeze the moment this man was cultivating his land so that you could see how energized he was knowing something was going to grow on the very parts of the land he dug,” James detailed.

According to Cleopatra Chapalwa, the event curator, the participation crowd was high compared to expectations.

“The idea to curate an event like this started late 2021 after I attended a photograph seminar where I was an assistant to a climate photographer from Amsterdam. I started thinking how beautiful it would be connecting artists and people on topics that surround both parties,” she recalls.

Cleopatra further details that “I then started reaching out to the headlining artists. After we met, I was keen on being honest that this is my first time curating such an event. The rest is history.”

Additional report by Ewen Le Clec’h