Rehema Chachage (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1987) is a Mixed Media artist - working mostly in video and sculptural instillations as well as performance - based in Dar es Salaam, She graduated in 2009 from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
The themes explored in her work are very much determined by her situatedness, but the most prominent ones are ‘rootedness’, ‘gender’ and ‘identity’ explored in her earlier works from the point of view of a stranger, the outsider, the other, alien and often voiceless — a feeling gathered from the social alienation she experienced in the four years spent as a ‘cultural foreigner’ and a non-South African, black female student in a predominantly white middleclass oriented institution. Of late, her interest in these themes have steered her in the direction of exploring rituals as valuable tool for reading into social norms and tensions, including the woman’s identity, gender relations and subversion. www.rehemachachage.com
Solo shows include;
Mshanga, Nafasi Art Space, Tanzania (2013); Orupa Mchikirwa/Mshanga, Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Japan (2012); Chipuza, Goethe Institute Tanzania (2010); Haba na Haba, Michaelis School of Fine Art (2009).
Group shows include;
PLAY an Exhibition, Nirox Sculpture Park, South Africa (2014); Where we’re at! Other voices on gender, Bozar, Brussels (2014); !Kauru: Rerouting Dialogue 1994 – 2014, UNISA (2014); STILL FIGHTING IGNORANCE & INTELLECTUAL PERFIDY: Video Art from Africa, Ben Uri Museum, London (2014); Featured in Africa Masters: Rising Stars (Tanzania). The African Channel, UK (2014); 18th International Contemporary Festival VIDEOBRASIL, Sao Paolo (2013); STILL FIGHTING IGNORANCE & INTELLECTUAL PERFIDY: Video Art from Africa, Malmo Konsthall, Sweden; 28th edition of VIDEOFORMES, Clermont-Ferrand, France; Motorenhalle, Dresden, Germany; Kunsthalle Sao Paulo, Brasil (2013); WOMAN, Nafasi Art Space, Tanzania (2013); Dak’Art African Contemporary Art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal (2012); Story on Story, Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Japan (2012); East African Art Biennale, Tanzania (2011), Global City-Local Identity, Ebrahim Building, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2011)
Rehema Chachage is also currently artistic manager of programs for Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, www.nafasiartspace.org. Rehema Chachage was selected by Hedwig Fijen, director Manifesta and Thomas Peuts at the time director of Smart Project Space. She will be our artist in residence till end of June 2015.