Moffat Takadiwa: Second Life

The United States has long run a huge international trade surplus in plastic waste. We import cheap toothbrushes, bottles, keyboards, calculators, we throw them away, then we ship our garbage elsewhere—recently to our neighbors in Canada and Mexico, but up until 2015, Africa and China were the main recipients.

For decades, the outskirts of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe, once lush with vegetation, have been covered with the “recyclables” from world superpowers for as far as the eye can see. Western and Eastern colonizers, though largely gone in body, have been supplanted by a legacy of junk that engulfs the natural landscape.

Moffat Takadiwa sees the dark side of this inheritance, but he also views it as a source of hope. Second Life, Takadiwa’s second solo exhibition at Nicodim New York, represents a rebirth of his community on the international stage and a celebration of its innovation, inspiration, and power. “This body of work represents the strong belief I have in humanity and a possible second chance to make a difference,” he explains.

To create the works, Takadiwa employs a small army of artisans he employs within a studio and project space he operates called Mbare Art Space. (Mbare is an urban enclave outside Harare historically defined by poverty and neglect.) His compositions are woven from materials recovered from a variety of dumping sites that surround Harare, as well as trash from a clothing factory. Under his close direction and mentorship, his team of craftspeople help him clean, polish, and fabricate the mixed media into sophisticated post-industrial fabrics, layered in both beauty and allegory.

To Takadiwa, this presentation is a testament to the energy generated via community, an exercise in resilience, and a symbol of the power of unity in the face of adversity. “Through this exhibition and my practice as a whole, I am repurposing dying spaces characterized by urban decay into a second life; worlds of hope, creativity, and joy.”

Moffat Takadiwa (b. 1983, Hurungwe) lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe. Takadiwa transforms post-consumer waste – such as computer keyboards, bottle tops, toothbrushes and toothbrush tubes, – into lush, densely layered sculptures and tapestry-like wall works and sculptures. A prominent voice from the post-independence artist generation in Zimbabwe, Takadiwa’s work centerstage his Korekore heritage while engaging with themes such as consumerism, inequality, post-colonialism and the environment. Takadiwa is also a founder of Mbare Art Space in Harare where he plays a major role in mentoring the growing artist community, establishing the world first artistic center dedicated to repurpose reclaimed materials.

Exhibitions include Second Life, Nicodim, New York (2025, solo); Possible New Dawn, Nicodim Annex, Los Angeles (2024, solo); Vestiges of Colonialism, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2024, solo); Avantgarde & Liberation, Mumok, Vienna (2024); Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale exhibition, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Venice (2024); Tales of the Big River, Galerie Edouard Manet, Centre d’art contemporain, Gennevilliers (2024, solo); Color is the First Revelation of the World, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa (2024); signifying the impossible song, Southern Guild, Los Angeles (2024); Feeling Without Touching, Nicodim, New York (2023); Zero Zero, Semiose, Paris (2023, solo); Vestiges of Colonialism, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (2023, solo); A Love Letter to LA, curated by Storm Ascher, Superposition Gallery, Phillips Auction House, Los Angeles (2023); Africa Supernova, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (2023); Nous sommes tous des lichens, Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne – château de Rochechouart (2022); The Bull, Semiose, Paris (2022, solo); Brutalized Language, Nicodim, New York (2022, solo); Witch Craft: Rethinking Power, Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles (2021, solo); This is Not Africa: Unlearn What You Have Learned, ARoS Museum, Denmark (2021); Mr. Foreman you have destroyed the farm, Semiose, Paris, France (2021, solo); INXS: Never Before Seen Major Works by Simphiwe Ndzube, Moffat Takadiwa, Zhou Yilun, Nicodim, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Son of the Soil, Nicodim, Los Angeles, CA (2019, solo); Thread., Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach (2019); Stormy Weather, Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, The Netherlands (2019); Second Hand: Selected Works from the Jameel Art Collection, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); Material Insanity, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech (2019); The Eye Sees Not Itself, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2018); and Chinafrika. under construction, Museum for Contemporary Art Leipzig (2017).

Collections include: Roc Nation Collection, Los Angeles; CC Foundation, Shanghai; Centre National d’Art Plastique, Paris; Collection of Art of European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium; National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare and more.

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New York

May 6 – July 3, 2025

Press Release

Selected Works