When the pandemic first hit the world, Zimbabwean stone sculptor David Ngwerume took up a hammer and chisel and began work on the first of a collection of Covid-inspired pieces.
Almost two years and 14 sculptures later, one of them has found its way to China after being selected for the ninth Beijing International Art Biennale, an exhibition featuring works by thousands of artists from more than 100 countries.
The piece “Unto the Third Wave” shows a woman receiving a vaccine against Covid-19 from two hanging hands. Ngwerume made it in June last year, just before a third wave of the pandemic hit the country. “When I heard a third wave was coming, I called it Unto the Third Wave. I’ve been encouraging people — let’s get vaccinated, prepare for whatever’s coming and for variants,” he says.
Omicron has prevented Ngwerume, who also has his own legal practice, from accompanying his sculpture to China, but back home in Harare he remains determined to continue expanding his Covid collection. His goal is to make and exhibit 25 to 30 sculptures.
Ngwerume began sculpting while still at school in Musana, northeast of Harare, under the tutelage of the sculptor Cosmos Muchenje. He loved the idea of sculptures being visible from afar and believes they can convey a message better than a painting that has to stay indoors. Stone carving has a long tradition in Zimbabwe and Ngwerume collects various materials from quarries and mines across the country.
It was his father who inspired him to practice law and make art at the same time. Ngwerume was academically gifted and it was always his ambition to pursue a profession. “My father always encouraged me to do both,” he says. “He told me, ‘You can’t be a good artist without an academic qualification, you won’t end up understanding how the world moves.'” Ngwerume now makes sculptures in his home studio.
The idea for the Covid collection came about in the early stages of the pandemic when Ngwerume was thinking about what people were experiencing and how he could reflect that through his art.
“Covid-19 confronted people in all parts of the world. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe and not picky between rich and poor, black and white, Muslim and Christian… it has severed everything that divides humanity,” he says.
“I felt inspired [and thought about] what role I should play to create awareness, to inspire the world. How can we fight this pandemic together and how can we get through it ourselves?”
Ngwerume’s first sculpture from his self-financed collection is a masked female figure.
After vaccines were developed, he made a sculpture called “Arms” – a half torso with two suspended arms holding an injection. He explains, “The reason it’s a half is because I didn’t want it to be perceived as gender. I wanted it to resonate with everyone.”
He also created a sculpture called Hygiene showing two people washing hands. “My goal was to move with the world, to do my part and bring messages to the world,” says Ngwerume.
His work has attracted international attention beyond the Beijing Biennale and has been published in various media. “There wasn’t an artist who did anything like it, and it spoke to the times,” he says.
Ngwerume’s greatest dream is to have his work exhibited around the world, including at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva. “Coming from a small country in Africa, I’m unnoticed and unrecognized and I wonder if that’s going to happen,” he says. “Maybe it’s just a wish. I won’t stop what I’m doing, even if I end up exhibiting at my house and even if the galleries won’t look at me.”
He adds, “I’ll keep going, my spirit keeps rising.”
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