RÉMANENCE: MOFFAT TAKADIWA
For his first solo exhibition in Ivory Coast, Moffat Takadiwa presents Rémanence, a series of works that grew out of a process of collecting materials between Harare and Abidjan, notably within the industrial zone of Yopougon. Wastelands, rubbish dumps, transformation workshops and logistical backyards serve as territories of exploration from which the artist retrieves plastics, technical components and manufactured fragments destined for abandonment. These peripheral sites – often absent from official urban narratives – become the starting point for a practice that examines the circulation of materials across the African continent and beyond.
Born in 1983 in Karoi in post-independence Zimbabwe, Takadiwa now lives and works in Mbare on the outskirts of Harare. This district, known as one of the country’s main centres for recovery and redistribution, has been central to the development of his work. Since the mid-2000s, the artist has cultivated a sculptural practice grounded in the collection, sorting and assemblage of manufactured residues. He transforms computer keyboard keys, toothbrush heads, toothpaste tubes, plastic bottle caps and other synthetic fragments into vast wall-based compositions with an almost organic density.
The series presented in the exhibition Rémanence extends this methodology while inscribing it within a new territory. By undertaking a process of collecting at the intersection of two urban geographies, the artist reveals a material continuity: that of a globalised economy whose surpluses circulate as widely as newly manufactured goods. Between the markets and depots of Mbare and the industrial zones of Yopougon, Takadiwa identifies a comparable topography characterised by accumulations of plastic, obsolete technical components and standardised packaging. Produced elsewhere, these objects arrive in African cities where they enter informal circuits of repair, resale or abandonment.
It is precisely at this turning point that the artist intervenes. After gathering large quantities of material, he meticulously sorts them according to colour, form and texture. This rigorous protocol culminates in a process of upcycling. Used objects are dismantled and then reassembled, acquiring a new value that exceeds their original function. Fragments of everyday life are perforated, bound and interwoven by hand to shape expansive modular surfaces. Through this patient gesture, accumulation becomes visual architecture.
From a distance, these compositions evoke cartographic landscapes – irrigation networks, cultivated fields, urban grids or geological formations seen from above. Drawing nearer, the eye gradually discerns the precise nature of the elements from which they are made. This oscillation between abstraction and materiality constitutes one of the essential dimensions of Takadiwa’s practice. The works first captivate through their chromatic rhythms and repetitive structures before unveiling the ordinary origins of the objects that compose them.
The notion of remanence alludes to what persists after a presence appears to have vanished: a trace, an imprint, a lingering configuration that continues to act even after its source has ceased to be. The materials gathered by the artist carry precisely this silent memory. Plastics, keyboard keys and industrial remnants have already passed through several cycles of use before reaching the status of waste. Their primary function has dissipated, yet something remains – a material, social and ecological charge.
In Takadiwa’s works, this persistence becomes visible. Abandoned objects do not truly disappear; they build up, circulate and settle within urban landscapes and informal economies. By gathering them into monumental surfaces, the artist does not erase their history. On the contrary, he reveals its continuity. Each fragment operates as an active vestige, reminding us that everything rejected by our societies continues to exert an influence in the world.
Within this context, the artist’s environmental commitment does not arise from an abstract discourse. It stems from a tangible desire to act directly upon matter itself. By reclaiming fragments otherwise destined to contaminate soil or waterways, Takadiwa symbolically redirects their trajectory. What once cluttered the margins of the urban landscape acquires monumental presence. What seemed useless becomes a luminous surface. The artist does not claim to resolve the ecological crisis, but instead proposes a shift in perspective: to recognise the latent value of materials that our societies seek to discard.
The recurrent use of dismantled keyboard keys also introduces a linguistic and political dimension. Decontextualised, the letters cease to function as vehicles of a dominant language and instead become fully fledged plastic elements. The alphabet – fragmented and redistributed – becomes a textured visual field. The instrument of global communication is thus absorbed into a sculptural syntax that escapes linguistic hierarchies.
Through Rémanence, Takadiwa reveals an Africa traversed by the same currents of production and consumption, yet capable of reversing their symbolic charge. The debris of a globalised economic system becomes the raw material for a new monumentality. Within Takadiwa’s visual vocabulary, sculpture operates as a process of requalification: residue becomes matrix, the periphery becomes centre, and abandonment is transmuted into formal power.
