I had a dream: Harare, Zimbabwe

This is the vision behind AtWork “I Had A Dream”. Conceived by the Moleskine Foundation and the writer Simon Njami, the travelling workshop engages communities in 4 different places; Rome, Italy; N’Djamena, Chad; Kampala, Uganda and Harare, Zimbabwe. Lively debate and open expression facilitate the safe environment necessary for critical thinking and creative doing. The 5 day workshops culminate in an exhibition of the artistic notebooks produced as metaphors of the process. As Simon Njami says, “We were born what we were born, but we always become what we did. In few words, “I Had A Dream” is a call to action, here and now”.

For the fourth and final chapter, Simon Njami conducted a ‘Training of Trainers’ prior to the workshop for local artists and educators hoping to one day become AtWork leaders themselves. Berry Bickle, Kudzanai Chiurai and Dana Whabira, National Gallery of Zimbabwe’s education specialist Fadzai Muchemwa, and curator of Zeitz MOCAA, Tandazani Dhlakama, participated in the training and then assisted and facilitated the workshop, adding an extra layer of richness to the participants’ experience.

How do I break a cycle? A cycle of the unknown, of the hidden, a cycle of stains. How do I break a curse that has been passed down, generation to generation? I exhume it, I consume it and I expel it. I rewrite it, translate it, again and again, and again until that translation of a translation has changed into so- mething new, a new unknown – the eternal mother tongue. This is how to remove a stain of the blue dress.

A dream can be one but they begin with chapters. I used the concept of tarots cards because they predict, they find an- swers and question for some. I used six different character cards: The Moon symbolize the dreams, the Star symbolizes the following challenges, the Lover symbolizes relationship and decision about an existing relationship like a temptation of the heart, the Death card symbolizes the transformation and the Devil symbolizes the beginning.

Success comes from working hard. I always face troubles and it feels like it sometimes destroyers my life which distracts me from my dreams. l am fighting hard and working hard to suc- ceed so that l can accomplish my life mission. The hole on the book is the community and the stones represent people who discourage me, the ladder is the way out from the people who distract my dream, while the clouds is my success.

My notebook consists of two parts representing two dreams. The outer dream is about my personal life spanning between two countries due to my relationship. The challenge is to travel freely and without a limitation of duration. The border is shown by a wall out of glass that needs to be destroyed in order to travel independently. The inner dream shows my passion and profession: constructing buildings developed with the community, concentrated on existing materials and climate. The content is a scaled abstracted model of the project that led me to my dream.

It is always difficult for me to say what l feel so l use patterns, shapes and colours to express my feelings. I use bright colours to attack viewers, as well as comple- mentary colours to create a vibrant look especially when used at full saturation. I created my piece as a room because my bedroom is a magical place. It is a place where l find all my dreams coming true. I feel like when l am asleep, everything that l hope for seems to fall in place, I feel like l am a magician when l am asleep. l hope that one day, l will turn into one.

In 1884, during the Berlin Conference, organized by Otto Von Bismar- ck, Africa was partitioned. Africa still remains divided, creating diffi- culties because of travel limitations. In this piece I have created an African passport which would allow us to travel freely. I want to this passport to unite Africa and make Africa one country by recon- necting it and its people.

My aim is to use my imagination in order to reach my goals. The stairs represent moving up, the yin-yang describes how two seemingly op- posite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, intercon- nected, and interdependent in the natural world and how they rise each other. For me, this shows that in order to face my reality I need to use my imagination.

My work is about giving myself a chance to let go of all my troubles and the starting of a new beginning for my relationship with my mother. The work also aims to give a chance to girls and young women in my community to open up and improve dialogue with their friends and families. The handbag is representing women and girls and the contents in the bag is the baggage we are carrying.

My book includes a self- portrait that is missing one eye and it also involves a projection of my dream which is to become a successful director of photography who is happy about himself and not working to please another individual. At the back is a film strip represented as a flower that shows how my photo- graphy is going to grow like a flower

My work aims to express how I want to help the less fortunate through the capabilities I have learnt through experience. Coming from the bottom up, to eating from a silver plate is not an easy process. I want to be the foundation which can help people grow and be who they are really meant to be.

For me, an egg represents potential. It denotes life that is in one state but with the capability to transform into another higher state. The shell of an egg is protection but when time is ripe for it to change, the con- serving wall becomes a prison to its inhibitor. As such, the life inside has to break free, a process which is brutal but most rewarding. I envision myself as that life that is breaking free from its comfort zone which is ironically also the prison.My journey to become an Artist is excruciating sometimes, yet nothing else can satisfy me more. It is ironic that it is at birth that death is closest - that phase of being most vulnerable and unsure of the next phase. This uncertainness is depicted in the abstracted concept of being birthed by the book. This being requires nurturing and persistent care to be fruitful. The nest is a symbol for the comfor- ting environment which is necessary for hatching to be possible. Not only does it serve as an escape to the confining egg, it becomes contaminated by the birth process.

I want to travel around the world learning more about art. It would give me more than just an experience, it will open up my world. For me, traveling is fun while learning and it will also make me happy. I believe that travelling would make me a learner of the world with a creative mindset.

What is beauty without pain? Reaching the age of woman- hood is not an easy journey. Emotional pains, scars and wounds which take you years to overcome. Changes build up a whole new and different personality day by day, that’s the nature of life. Being a victim of such emotional injustice, I would take myself as a tree fighting for survival in the midst.

Where people see me, it is not where I will be. So, if you look at my work you will see things from afar but to me it is near.

A portmanteau is formed through the combination of two or more words that relate to a singular concept. This piece is about combining different characteristics of the Baobab, Mopani and the Musasa trees into one big tree that is a sin- gular concept. I am the tree. The various characteristics of trees I am made out of represent the knowledge I gain from attending talks, exhibitions, conversations, workshops etc. As far as my dream is concerned, I am the portmanteau.

I’m programmed to think one-dimensionally, who is to say there aren’t other dimensions beyond the third dimension? My responsibi- lity is to look for them, to find something else. However, I might have to change what I’m looking for. The Black box represents the brain - for every input there’s an output. In the notebook, I wrote what I would like to know, what I want to know and what I already know. Those inputs are sealed in the black box.

Prison to paradise is an artwork featuring a movement from a terrible situation of living with a stepmother. The movement is featured as chapters leading one from bondage to paradise . The bondage chapter side of the Moleskine books shows chains and padlocks . The paradise side shows the house of the Lord where spiritual healing is. The blank pages represent the future yet to come with expecations of a peaceful life with pages of happiness.

For me to succeed in life I need myself as an individual to work hard in order to achieve my goals. If I don’t believe in myself and stand up for myself, no one will. My book expresses the feelings of me helping myself and how my future is in my own hands. It expresses how I am going to make my dream come true by getting out of the box. The ladder represents people who I know will help me but for them to help me. I have to help myself first.

My work has a tension that connects with me as a dreamer. As a violin is played with the connection with the player I make myself the endless sound of the playing violin. I made the strings as a form of the sound that is endless. With the motion it brings to the audience.

The act of historicising, as an act of writing, stagnates the natural pro- gression of ideas. This process allows the author to corral a collective memory into specific directions. This type of propaganda entangles itself into a domestic setting which in turn, vindicates the original instigator. If our memory is written for us, can we re-humanise? I exa- mine this by deconstructing the authority of a given story; I then reconstruct it in a series of nondeclarative sentences which manifest themselves as visual questions upon which an identity may form freely.