Uhuru is Swahili for ‘freedom’. This piece is an exploration of what happens after a coup. Zimbabweans, on 21 November 2017, celebrated a military intervention that led to the fall of Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s 37 years of dictatorial rule. Following the coup Zimbabweans at home and in the diaspora held celebrations and saw this as a moment and marker of a freedom that had long been awaited. I used a sound-scape created using recordings from a Zimbabwean Diaspora celebration of the coup, in London. This was combined with archival footage of army announcements on Zimbabwean media reassuring citizens, and audio of Mugabe announcing his ‘resignation’. This film project juxtaposes the celebratory sound of Zimbabwean citizens following the coup, against the state violence now being experienced under the new regime.
Rambisayi Marufu
Rambisayi Marufu is a plant mama and holistic healing practitioner. She is a current MRES Visual Anthropology student at Goldsmiths University, London. Through a practice grounded in Black feminisms, Rambi is interested in Black Diasporic lived experiences. She is interested in the matter of Black life across the globe and in practices of ‘refusal’ through community making and living Otherwise.