Malawi: Warm Heart of Africa

Curious Zebra (2015)
by Winston Chapweteka


Livingstone was also the first Westerner to reach the shores of the great Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi), whose waters cover almost a quarter of the country’s surface area, in total about 118,000 square kilometres in the southern part of the Rift Valley, between Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The Most Wanted Liquid (2015)
by Peter Chikondi


Malawi today is a very young country; the average age of the population is only 16 years old, and it continues to rely above all on agriculture, which employs 90 percent of the Malawian workforce.

The Endurance of Africa (2015)
by David Samuel Kachepa



The country’s main products are tobacco, accounting for 70 percent of exports, and the tea grown in the Shire Highlands, emerald green hills covered with plantations. Malawi is, in fact, one of the largest tea producers in the world and, along with Sri Lanka, India, Kenya, Indonesia and Rwanda, is part of a sort of ‘OPEC of tea’.

Glass of Water (2015)
by Mcdonald F. Kamunda

The third largest lake in Africa is a sparkling expanse of water, rich in colourful fish (the vast majority of the inhabitants of domestic aquariums around the world hail from here), with scattered islets and rocks. And long beaches of fine white sand, like a corner of the Indian Ocean.

African (Lady) Woman (2015)
by Fyson Malola


‘The warm heart of Africa’, therefore, is not just a Malawian tourist slogan. And if Madonna, adopting two Malawian children, brought it a fleeting notoriety, a trip to the country could represent a lasting encounter with an Africa that is as simple as it is magical. Eight hundred kilometres long, a wide variety of landscapes: splendid highlands, wild savannahs, rivers, forests, lakes, mountains, plantations and protected national parks.

Lake Scene (2015)
by Cliff Kantwanje

The Liwonde National Park, located in the central south of Malawi, extends along the Shire River, one of Africa’s few fully navigable rivers, on whose shores elephants and hippos, waterbuck and sable antelope, buffalo and zebras water. And where in any season the birds – in Malawi there are more than 650 species – provide an exceptional spectacle, so much so that the area is included in the exclusive list of the international IBA (Important Bird Areas).

African Mask (2015)
by Francis M’Memo


Malawi also has a strong literary and poetic tradition, which has often attempted to merge African tradition with Western influences. As in the long poem by David Rubadiri that tells of the meeting between the African king Mutesa and the explorer Stanley, harbinger of a possible cultural symbiosis between the two civilizations.

The Strength of a Woman (2015)
by Loveness Ndalama


This collection of over 140 10x12 centimetre artworks dedicated to Malawi confirms how the new generations, in particular, are increasingly aware of their roots and – avoiding Western models if possible, in life and in art – are trying to find themselves in the source of their origins.

Village of Malawi (2015)
by Emmanuel D. Kwenyani


When some curious soul asked the young Malawian painter Elson Kambalu what his abstract figures represent, he replied: “they represent all that you think, all that you see, you may decide. There are people who see a crowd, some see candles, some see mystical figures.”

The Group (2015)
by Dyles Allan Malimbasa

In the images, figurative or abstract, in the colours and inspirations of the Malawian artists in the Imago Mundi collection, lies the invitation to search within oneself, to commit, to take a personal look and more.

Worship (2015)
by Romeo Malizani Chaheka



In the Chewa branch of Bantu culture, the largest group in Malawi, the chameleon is the animal that symbolizes life. The chameleon has forward facing eyes, to look to the future. But it also sees behind: to never lose sight of the past. And to use it, when necessary, as a compass.

Luciano Benetton