Moffat Takadiwa Wins Major International Award as New Paris Exhibition Opens.

by artweb Africa

Award winning Zimbabwean contemporary artist Moffat Takadiwa has received yet another major international recognition after being named the grand winner of the inaugural Toyota Tsusho CFAO African Art Award, a new distinction aimed at supporting emerging contemporary artists working across the African continent. The award, announced this week, selected five artists from approximately one hundred nominees proposed by curators and critics from around the world, reflecting the growing international attention on Zimbabwean contemporary art and its expanding presence in biennials, museums, and global exhibitions.

Takadiwa, who studied Fine Art at Harare Polytechnic College, has built a distinctive practice that transforms discarded consumer materials into large-scale textile-like compositions. Working primarily with objects collected from Harare’s recycling markets and landfill sites, particularly in the bustling suburb of Mbare, he assembles materials such as computer keyboard keys, bottle caps, buttons, and plastic waste into densely woven surfaces. These works function simultaneously as aesthetic objects and as social archives, mapping the journey of global consumer goods that often end their lives in African cities.

The award arrives at a moment when Takadiwa’s career is already firmly established on the international stage. In recent years his work has been included in major exhibitions and institutional presentations around the world, including the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024 and the São Paulo Biennale in 2025. At the São Paulo Biennale, his intricate tapestries made from recycled materials stood out within the monumental modernist pavilion, shimmering with layered surfaces that invite viewers to reflect on the afterlife of objects in a globalised economy.

Beyond the visual spectacle of the works themselves lies a deeper narrative. Takadiwa’s practice addresses the environmental and political realities of post-colonial economies, where Western consumer goods circulate through complex trade routes before eventually arriving in African markets and waste streams. By meticulously sorting, weaving, and arranging these discarded materials, he converts what might otherwise be seen as rubbish into intricate structures that carry both aesthetic and symbolic power.

Moffat Takadiwa artwork showing at Semiose Gallery in Paris.

This recognition also coincides with Takadiwa’s upcoming exhibition titled The Crown! at Semiose Gallery in Paris, running from 14 March to 16 May 2026. The exhibition expands his ongoing exploration of transformation and identity through the reuse of everyday objects. In this new body of work, discarded keyboard keys, Afro combs, and bottle caps are assembled into circular forms, masks, and crown-like structures that evoke themes of authority, community, and resistance. These forms suggest both spiritual guardians and collective identities, drawing from African cosmology while addressing the enduring legacies of colonialism and global consumer culture.

Much of the material used in Takadiwa’s work is sourced from Mbare, a neighbourhood in Harare known for its recycling markets and informal economies. It is also the site of Mbare Art Space, the artist-run initiative he founded inside a former colonial beer hall. The space has become an important hub for young Zimbabwean artists, fostering collaborative experimentation and reinforcing the collective ethos that informs Takadiwa’s practice.  

What makes Takadiwa’s work particularly compelling is the tension it maintains between beauty and critique. His monumental wall pieces shimmer with colour and pattern, drawing viewers in with their visual richness, yet they are constructed from fragments of a global system of consumption that often leaves African landscapes bearing the burden of its waste. Rather than hiding this contradiction, Takadiwa foregrounds it, allowing the materials themselves to tell stories of movement, displacement, and reinvention.