Kresiah Mukwazhi's Exhibition Mukando at Jan Kaps Explores Zimbabwe's Sex Industry Through Textile Art

Zimbabwean artist Kresiah Mukwazhi presented her exhibition Mukando at Jan Kaps in Cologne from December 4, 2020, to February 13, 2021. The show featured roughly assembled textile works, both wall-based and suspended, incorporating fabrics like petticoats, sequined materials, and leopard prints. Mukwazhi's art addresses how Zimbabwe's corruption-corroded economy forces many women into sex work, where they face violence and exploitation. Works such as Not everything that glitters is gold (2020) depict female figures with provocative poses, while Zviratidzo zvenguva (Shona for Signs of the Times) encodes a friend's account of nearly being suffocated by a client. The artist transforms animal prints from garish workwear into representations of women's skin, portraying sex workers as powerful seductresses playing with male gazes. Fabrics used include pompoms from strip clubs, often riddled with rips and dirt, alongside Bollywood-esque ornamentation that became common in Africa due to cheap South Asian textiles. Mukwazhi incorporates these macroeconomic processes into her art, linking them to the sex industry's realities. The exhibition title references Mukando, a self-governed savings society where sex workers and marginalized individuals support each other financially. Through her works, Mukwazhi blends pragmatism and pathos, turning fabric scraps into embodiments of social fabric that highlight both beauty and brutality in Zimbabwe's nightlife.