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

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

Through the medium of fabulation, my ongoing research delves into Intertopia—a liminal space I've 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.

I began this exploration by seeking to frame blackness in all its complexity and multidimensionality. Wanderlust and movement across spacetimes intersect with this endeavour, as I conceptualise blackness not as a matter of 'what' but rather as a matter of 'where' and 'when'.

The abstracted body, traversal and portals are recurring motifs in my practice. In my sculptural work, I delight in obfuscating and manipulating elements of the human form, creating a visual language that implies the complexities of ‘our’ condition without offering easy answers. My work is a dance between revelation and concealment.

My sculptural work serves as both a tribute to those who came before me and a testament to my own existence, a refusal to be relegated to the margins. I like to think of my positionality as that of an anatopism, existing in spaces that defy conventional categorization, and an anachronism, navigating through time with a history that has been obscured or erased. Through my work, I perpetually attempt to articulate this complex narrative through messily bridging the past, present, and future and filling in the gaps however I see fit when they’re encountered.

I often liken my sculptural practice to terraforming this specific spacetime. By this, I mean the process of integrating micro-landscapes and characters/figures from my speculative narratives into my tangible lived experience.

Education

BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction,

London College of Communication.

2016 - 2019

Postgraduate Certificate in Creative Education,

University of the Creative Arts

2023 - 2024

Teaching Positions

Lecturer in Art & Design

London College of Contemporary Arts

2023 - Present

Associate Lecturer

London College of Communication

BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction

2023 - Present

Tutor

Educator's Republic

2023 - Present

2023

Player Piano,

The Art Station, Saxmundham

Group Show

Intangible Care

CIVA Festival, Vienna, Austria

Group Show

Fabric of Dreams: Towards a Technodiversity

Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab (AIL), Vienna, Austria

Group Show

2021

Channel B

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK

Group Show

From Then to Here

Roodkapje Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Group Show

Uncanny Reality

Symposion Lindabrunn, Austria

Group Show

Pieces of Me

Transfer Gallery in Partnership with Left Gallery

Group Show

Control The Virus Vol. 3

Dateagle Art, London, UK

Group Show

2019

BBZ Alternative Graduate Show 2019

Copeland Gallery, London, UK

Group Show

Evo’s Turn

Arebyte On Screen,

Arebyte Gallery

Cyber Sanctuaries

Specter, Wrong Biennale

Group Show

GoingAway TV

Wrong Biennale,

In Partnership with Arebyte Gallery

Group Show

2022

Futures Past

Arebyte Gallery, London, UK

Group Show

Speech Sounds

Visual Carlow, Carlow, Ireland

Group Show

In Dedication

We Exist & Koppel Projects, London, UK

Group Show

2020

Disembodied Behaviours

Bitforms Gallery, New York, USA

In Partnership with New Art City

Group Show

POWERPLAY

Arebyte Gallery, London, UK.  August 2020.

National Galleries of Zimbabwe (Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare), 2020-2021.

Group Show

Vacation at the End of the World,

Offsite Projects

Group Show

Data Fatigue,

Isthisit?

Group Show

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

2020

Art + Technology Season 3

Invited Artist

Tactics: Power and Play, 2020

Arebyte Gallery

Moderator & Speaker

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

2019

London Film Festival Experimenta Debate 2019,

ICA

In partnership with BFI & ICA

Guest Speaker

The Conch, October

South London Gallery,

Guest Speaker

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

Awards and Grants

Black Artist’s Grant, 2020

Daniel Arsham & Samuel D Ross

DYCP, 2024

Arts Council England

How Kumbirai Makumbe’s love for digital matter birthed their future-focused practice

Feature, It's Nice That

Kumbirai Makumbe on blending the physical and digital in their artistic practice

Feature, Creative Lives In Progress

Sentient Beings 2.0: Kumbirai Makumbe, Living Doesn't Mean you're Alive

Feature, INACTUAL Magazine