By Dr Tony Monda

NGANO (folktales) that were both humorous and tragic were often told to young children as a form of entertainment, but more so as a tool for teaching them about morality, custom and African traditions.
Popular Zimbabwean sculptor, Fanizani Akuda used the same methods and similar narratives in the content and context of his folkloric stone sculpture.
In the absence of books and television in the remote areas of Hurungwe where he started sculpting, Akuda’s humourous sculptures substituted folktale books and the voice of the storyteller.
His humour, however, was not mere slap-stick comedy.
Like most indigenous traditional folktales, the humour was intended to enhance the young audience’s understanding of the world around them with all its foibles and fortitudes.
When presented visually, as works of art, the humorous folktales are not only magnified in one’s mind, but the imagery helps to retain the story in one’s mind.
Each of Akuda’s art works could be ‘read’ as a story book of African indigenous fables.
The simplicity of his work and extreme unpretentiousness made his work likable to a large audience which included children and adults from all nationalities.
The work’s appeal cut across cultural parameters.
I first met Fanizani Akuda in 1984, during my early research on Zimbabwean art while still a student in my teens.
He was a stocky, jovial and unassuming man who had a strong resemblance to his witty and comical art works.
He recounted to me that he was born on November 11 1932 in Chipata, Zambia.
Originally he was named Fanizani Phiri.
Although he had no formal schooling, he joked that he spoke the ‘Queens language, fluently’.
He came to Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) in 1949, as a migrant labourer in search of work.
Akuda worked at basket weaving, cotton picking and brick-making prior to working as a quarryman at Tengenenge tobacco farm, in the Horseshoe area of Guruve, which later became a sculpture community.
By 1966, he was working there as a farm manager.
He and his wife Erina (with whom he had seven children), left the Tengenenge art community farm in 1975.
The family came to live in Chitungwiza where he lived and continued to sculpt independently until his death in February, 2011.
At Tengenenge, Fanizani Akuda observed and absorbed the various influences around him in the art community where he worked together with Henri Munyaradzi, Ephraim Chaurika, Crispen Chakanyuka and Edward Chiwawa among others.
A self-taught sculptor, he conceived and sculpted his work ‘in the round’, with a schematised face, round semi-concentric eyes, tubular nose and a horizontal slit for the mouth.
Akuda was essentially a story-teller in stone, bringing ‘drolerie’ and the personification of animals and birds in his subject matter, which is typical of indigenous folkloric traditions.
As one of the most original and inventive artists of his generation, Akuda developed a unique, comical style that was immediately recognisable.
Akuda’s humourous narratives were derived from a variety of indigenous orature, allegory, mythology and folktales from both the Chewa and Shona traditions.
His hearty good humour won him admiration and made him popular in his neighbourhood where he gave employment to many of the unemployed youths whom he taught to sculpt.
As a stone sculptor, artist, Akuda showed remarkable powers of invention and composition, particularly in his multi-figured and multi-tiered sculptures, which when seen from any angle, always had areas of visual interest.
Most of Akuda’s topics had moralising allusions taken from actual living situations.
These subjects were re-interpreted in stone pantomimes; he used comic animal characters to portray moral issues pertaining to the behaviour of man.
His work ranged in size from small sculptures to free-standing monumental and imposing works of art.
Towards the end of the first decade of the new millennium, Akuda’s works exhibited a growing freedom and wit that dealt with more contemporary issues such as human inequalities.
The simplicity of his message made his works universally accessible.
He gave the stone a feeling of ‘softness’ and malleability, a technique which distinguished him from his peers whose work was more hard-edged in appearance.
This aesthetic was particular to his work and made it particularly appealing to children.
In 2004, Fanizani Akuda took part in an exhibition entitled ‘Children at Play’ organised by co-director of Springstone Gallery, Dr Michelina Andreucci, held at Springstone Art Gallery in Avondale.
Here, special viewings were arranged for underprivileged children, from St. Giles Rehabilitation Centre, SOS and other Children homes to great appeal.
From 1981 Akuda took part in several Annual Heritage Exhibitions held by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.
In 1988 he received the ‘Highly Commended Award’ for his sculpture, ‘Snake Man’ at the National Gallery.
Akuda also had his works exhibited locally at Chapungu Village and was represented by Springstone Art Gallery at many ZimTrade Expos, in the Far East.
Internationally Akuda exhibited in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, Sweden, USA, Mozambique, South Africa, and Malawi.
Although some Western art critics and historians have compared his works to that of the Swiss painter and graphic artist, Paul Klee (1879 – 1940), due to the spontaneous wit and joyous spirit of his art, for me, his wit, humour and astute intelligence bore the stamp of indigenous inventiveness and re-ignited the power of African folklore and story-telling, immortalising it in stone.
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, musician, art critic, practicing artist and Corporate Image Consultant. He is also a specialist Art Consultant, Post-Colonial Scholar, Zimbabwean Socio-Economic analyst and researcher.
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