Kumbirai Makumbe

Zimbabwe, United Kingdom

Kumbirai Makumbe is a Zimbabwean artist based in London. Their artistic practice predominantly revolves around sculpture but also entails imagery, video and audio-visual digital installations.

Their recent work has revolved around self-narrativization, (hyper)visibility, softness, reconciliation, and the concept of belonging in a translocational context. Alongside this, they place a particular investment into contributing to the development of a Black doll gaze told by Black people on their own terms.

Through the medium of fabulation, their ongoing research delves into Intertopia—a liminal space they have envisioned within the throat of wormholes, inhabited by those in-transit. Intertopia draws inspiration from the cosmologies, spiritual beliefs, and rituals of the Shona people in Zimbabwe, intertwining them with speculative interstellar travel, trans-ness, and metamorphosis.

Contributions

Race Beyond Borders

The Myth-Science of BlacknessThe Myth-Science of Blackness

London-based Zimbabwean new media artist Kumbirai Makumbe talks Black quantum futures, the multiplicity of Black experiences and how the digital sphere provides new territory on which to map the multiverse of Blackness, beyond the boundaries of Afrofuturism.