The Art Museum and Galleries at W&L Reimagines the Legacy of Post-Consumer Waste with Moffat Takadiwa’s ‘Recoded Memories’ The exhibition, on view starting Oct. 24, brings the Zimbabwean artist’s sculptural exploration of memory, waste and the environmental aftermath of global power structures to the heart of Virginia.

Pregnant Picasso Bull, 2024, Moffat Takadiwa, Zimbabwean bank notes encased in bottle caps, calculator and computer keys, 107 1/8 x 50 x 2 3/8 in. Courtesy of Nicodim Gallery.

The Art Museum and Galleries at Washington and Lee University present “Recoded Memories,” a solo exhibition by contemporary Zimbabwean artist Moffat Takadiwa (b. 1983), whose work transforms reclaimed materials into expensive installations exploring memory, consumption and latent systems of power.

The exhibit will be on view from Oct. 24, 2025, through May 31, 2026, in the Watson Galleries and is guest curated by Clement Akpang, assistant professor of art history at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University. Akpang will be joined by Sandy de Lissovoy, associate professor of art at W&L, for a conversation about the themes and processes behind “Recoded Memories” at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 23 in the Ruscio Center for Global Learning, followed by a reception in Watson Galleries at 6:30 p.m. The exhibit and reception events are free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required for the talk, which will also be streamed online.

“There’s so much significance in the materials I use,” Takadiwa says of his reliance on discarded communication and recordkeeping devices such as VHS tapes. Over time, these materials have developed a vocabulary of their own. Computer keys, central to this exhibition, figure prominently: “I use them a lot when I speak about language. When you are displaced, language can become one of the first vehicles to connect back to home, or a memory of it.”

Takadiwa’s large-scale sculptural works, many of which take the form of intricately composed tapestry-like forms, repurpose post-consumer waste to interrogate global systems of circulation. His works question the culture of amassing and throwing things away, as well as what society chooses to preserve. Drawing from his indigenous Korekore aesthetic traditions and philosophies, which emphasize material reuse and collective knowledge, Takadiwa’s practice challenges dominant Western narratives of value, labor and permanence. In doing so, he reimagines found objects as not merely a critique of institutionalized aesthetic conventions, but a material strategy for sociocultural and historical commentary.

“I’m not just making objects, but statements meant to change the lives of my people, the image of my country and the world at large,” he said. “It’s possible for us to build a better memory of the places we call home.”

The exhibition is organized by the Art Museum and Galleries at W&L, and is made possible thanks to the generous contributions made by W&L’s Department of Art and Art History, the Class of 1963 Scholars in Residence Program and the university’s Museum Art Fund.

“We are honored to have Moffat Takadiwa’s art at Washington and Lee University, and to welcome the transformative conversations this exhibition will generate,” said Isra El-beshir, director of the Art Museum and Galleries. “Recoded Memories’ is both an invitation and a provocation to examine the entanglements between consumerism, environmental forces and the politics of waste.”

For more information, visit artmuseum.wlu.edu/moffat.

The Art Museum and Galleries at W&L are open to the public Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. To learn more about the 2025-2026 exhibitions, visit the Art Museum and Galleries’ website.

About the Artist:
Moffat Takadiwa (born in 1983 in Karoi, Zimbabwe) lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe. A prominent voice from Zimbabwe’s contemporary art scene, Takadiwa transforms post-consumer waste — computer keyboards, bottle tops, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes – into densely layered tapestry-like sculpture. His practice centers on his Korekore heritage while exploring themes of consumerism, inequality, post-colonialism and environmental decay.

Takadiwa’s work has been exhibited widely, including in the 36th Sao Paulo Biennale (2025); 60th Venice Biennale (Foreigners Everywhere, 2024); MUMOK, Vienna (Avantgarde & Liberation, 2024); and the Orange County Museum of Art (Color is the First Revelation of the World, 2024). Recent solo exhibitions include “Second Life” (2025) and “Feeling Without Touching” (2023) at Nicodim Gallery in New York; “Possible New Dawn” (2024) at Nicodim Annex in Los Angeles; and “Vestiges of Colonialism” (2023-2024) at Galeria Nicodim in Bucharest, Romania, and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare.

His works are held in major collections including the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Paris), the European Parliament Contemporary Art Collection (Brussels) and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. He is represented by Nicodim Gallery, with locations in Los Angeles and New York.

Takadiwa is the founder of Mbare Art Space, a visionary creative hub housed in a repurposed colonial-era beer hall in Harare’s Mbare township. Once a center of Zimbabwean cultural life and political organizing, Mbare now hosts a vibrant arts community. Through Mbare Art Space, Takadiwa provides studio space, mentorship and public programming, creating a model for socially and ecologically engaged cultural infrastructure.