In Moyo, Kudzanai Chiurai asks us to consider the notion of subjective mourning for public acts of violence, informed in part by the 2012 massacre at the Marikana mine in South Africa. Moyo is the third in a series of films, preceded by Iyeza and Creation. Moyo – meaning “air” – tenderly articulates the moment in death when the air or spirit leaves the body. The woman in the film witnesses this moment and cries, “Warazulwa ngenxa yami” (“You were ripped and torn for my sake”) as she wipes the wounds of a lifeless figure.

Iyeza formed part of visual artist Kudzanai Chiurai’s recent series State of the Nation - which explores juxtaposing the past and the present of the continent in the grip of violent civil wars. The film slows down 8 seconds of footage to 11 minutes, depicting the establishment of a new African nation state through an allegory of the Last Supper.

“On a continent that has experienced more violent conflict than any other, State of the Nation follows an individual’s narration of events that lead up to the inaugural speech by the first supposedly democratically elected prime minister. This leader styled along many of our existing leaders, retells the history of a people from another time, but still Africa’s time…” says the artist. The film also formed part of Chiurai’s installation Conflict Resolution at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel Germany in 2012