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Josiah Bob Taundi's gallery of images inspired by Operation Murambatsvina
February 09, 2006

Read the interview with Josiah Bob Taundi - includes audio files

Copyright rests with the author. No unauthorised use of these images. For further enquiries please consult the artist by writing to jbtaundi@yahoo.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Title: The City Medium: Poster colour on paper Unframed size: 34 x 34 cm

That place that makes you think that's where everything is happening is now for the rich, yuppie and sophisticated. Not everyone can afford it now. Not everyone can sell something to someone any more least of all vegetables, cigarettes or fruit. The government wants a clean organised urban environment with rich clean people in it. The government does not want to fight poverty anymore; it wants to fight the poor. So colourful, lyrical, seductive, individualistic and yet deceptive - that is The City.

Title: A Time To Rock Medium: Poster colour on paper Unframed size: 46 x 72 cm

In all the gloom, the Pub - the only alternative space, a sanctuary for everyone whether one has extra cash to burn or not. I was in Mufakose during the Murambatsvina madness. Some people would lounge in bars there because they couldn't find any other human settlement in which to live. Some households were hosting extra families displaced from wherever. They would seethe with refugees. The houses are just too small and would seethe with human activity so you just had to find some other place to spend the day. That place was the bar, the pub - a haven for all souls. I saw veterans who used to have houses at Ngungunyana housing scheme just lounging around KwaSpeed bar with nowhere to go. No matter what happens in Zimbabwe, there is always a time to rock. New cars, cell phones, clothes - everything - keep inundating us as if there is no tomorrow. It is hard to believe we still afford such luxuries in our present circumstances. That is the absurdity of living in Zimbabwe.

Title: Does God Have A Conscience? Medium: Poster colour on paper Unframed size: 93 x 73 cm

I have heard this question many times and decided to re-enact it after reading an opinion piece in The Standard that questioned, "Does Mugabe Have a Conscience?" I always wonder who is behind all our suffering in this country. Is it Robert Mugabe, George Bush, Tony Blair or God himself? Remember God created all men and for a purpose, I suppose. Therein lies my disillusionment. Everything in Zimbabwe is so inverted I sometimes don't know what to believe. You have to question everything you see, read or hear. When CAT manufactured those expensive "caterpillar" machines, were they aware what monsters those things could become if wrongfully used? Suddenly, an emblem that I have always associated with development became an emblem of destruction. I once saw on ZTV school kids in uniforms looking listlessly as their parents' homes were razed at a war veterans' housing cooperative just outside Harare. Why? Have we no conscience anymore?

Title: Boys Medium: Charcoal on paper Unframed size: 60 x 43 cm

Figure drawing of two boys I saw in Mufakose. I wanted to re-enact the apprehensiveness, innocence, powerlessness and trauma I saw on ZTV of those school kids at the veteran's housing scheme looking at what was once their house a only minute ago reduced to rubble.

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