Kumbirai Makumbe is a Zimbabwean new media artist based in London. Using sculpture, audio-visual digital installation, image and video, they continually interrogate the multi-dimensionality of blackness, transcendence and ‘inbetweeness’.

 

Their current research interrogates the condition of ‘inbetweeness’ and ‘Intertopia’, a fictitious space which Makumbe has located to be in the throat of wormholes where those with ‘translocational belongings’ reside. ‘Intertopia’ stems from and draws from the cosmology, spiritual beliefs and ritualistic practices of the Shona people from Zimbabwe and its intersections with speculative interstellar travel, trans-ness & metamorphosis.

 

Makumbe’s starting point for this inquiry is attempting frame blackness in all its complexity and multidimensionality in a contemporary context. Wanderlust, movement between different spacetimes intersect with this through conceptualising blackness not as a what but as a where and when.

 

Through worldbuilding and the use of speculative science fiction narratives, they place significant efforts into exploring alternative modes of being and thinking that could negate ideologies inhibiting a ‘needed’ future.

 

They’re enticed by the materiality and malleability of digital matter and the infinite possibilities of its employability. They repeatedly bring elements from the digital worlds they’ve forged into physical spaces, through 3D printing, as a crucial practice akin to terraforming. Makumbe continually collapses elements from their worlds into present and lived spacetimes in order to blur the boundaries between the two.

 

Exhibitions

 

2022

 

Futures Past, 2022

Arebyte Gallery, UK

Group Show

 

Speech Sounds, 2022

Visual Carlow, Ireland

Group Show

 

In Dedication, 2022

We Exist & Koppel Projects, UK

Group Show

 

2021

 

Channel B, 2021

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK

Group Show

 

From Then to Here, 2021

Roodkapje Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Group Show

 

Uncanny Reality, 2021

Symposion Lindabrunn, Austria

Group Show

 

2020

 

Disembodied Behaviours, 2020

Bitforms Gallery, New York, US

Group Show

 

POWERPLAY

Arebyte Gallery,  August 2020

National Galleries of Zimbabwe, 2020-2021

Group Show

 

2019

 

BBZ Alternative Graduate Show 2019

Copeland Gallery, London, UK

Group Show

 

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Online Exhibitions

 

2022

 

Bodies of Knowledge

ShowStudio

Group Show

 

2021

 

Pieces of Me, 2021

Transfer Gallery in Partnership with Left Gallery

Group Show

 

Control The Virus Vol. 3, 2021

Dateagle Art, London

Group Show

 

2020

 

Disembodied Behaviours,

Bitforms Gallery NYC & New Art City

Group Show

 

Vacation at the End of the World,

Offsite Projects

Group Show

 

Data Fatigue,

Isthisit?

Group Show

 

2019

 

Evo’s Turn

Arebyte On Screen,

Arebyte Gallery

 

Cyber Sanctuaries

Specter, Wrong Biennale

Group Show

 

GoingAway TV, 2019

Wrong Biennale,

In Partnership with Arebyte Gallery

Group Show

 

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Talks, Panel Discussions & Workshops:

 

2022

 

Where Do We Go From Here?! Part 4 - Workshop

The Feminist Library & Kinesis Collective

Shocked Quartz Festival

Host & Workshop Facilitator

 

Fiber Festival 2022

Presentation & Panel Discussion

Invited Guest

 

Where Do We Go From Here?! Part 3

Montez Press

Host

 

2021

 

Where Do We Go From Here?! Part 2

Bloc Projects

Co-host

 

Recipes for a Technological Undoing

Sandberg Institute

Workshop Host

 

Where Do We Go From Here?!

Art/ Work Association & Auto Italia

Host

 

Networked Futures: Worldbuilding and Video Games,

Isthisit?

Panelist

 

2020

 

Art + Technology Season 3

Invited Artist

 

Tactics: Power and Play, 2020

Arebyte Gallery

Moderator & Speaker

 

2019

 

London Film Festival Experimenta Debate 2019,

ICA

In partnership with BFI & ICA

Guest Speaker

 

The Conch, October

South London Gallery,

Guest Speaker

 

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Awards and Grants

 

Black Artist’s Grant, 2020

Daniel Arsham & Samuel D Ross

 

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Publication & Contributions

 

this broken piece of yard

LUX, Editted by Cairo Clarke

Contributor

 

Networked Futures: Online Exhibitions and Digital Hierarchies

Isthisit? Edited by Bob Bicknell Knight

Contributor & Interview

 

Chimeras: Inventory of synthetic cognition

Edited by Ilan Manouach and Anna Engelhardt

Published by Onassis Foundation

Contributor

 

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Selected Press

 

6 artists exploring the joy & pain of the trans experience

Feature, iD Vice

 

Pieces of Me review

Review, Burlington Contemporary

 

Disembodied Behaviours

Review, Art Newspaper

 

ACW Grant Award Article

Feature, Wallpaper Magazine

 

The BBZ art show looks at what it means to take up space and to survive

Review, Dazed

 

BBZ BLK BK: Alternative Graduate Show 2019

Review, Skin Deep Mag