Introduction to the exhibition

Voice: Roy Guthrie, Director of Chapungu Sculpture Park My name is Roy Guthrie. I'm a director of the Chapungu Sculpture Park. It is wonderful to return to the Missouri Botanical Garden, where many of our artists displayed their work for the first time in America in 2001. Stone sculpture is the art medium that most represents the people of Zimbabwe. Many of our artists are from the Shona tribe. There are a few from the Ndebele tribe also. Chapungu artists communicate in various forms of stone to combine contemporary art and themes with their ancient cultural heritage. With great skill and imagination, they convey the relationship between the two guiding forces of the physical world and the spiritual world. This exhibition is grouped in three themes. Man and Nature, Man and Family, and Man and Myth. And the first theme that you'll come to is Man and Myth. These pieces are located between the Ridgway Center there and the Climatron, along the magnolia walk. The sculptures here represent ancestral spirits, totem animals, creatures of legend, and the great Chapungu Bird as a protector and guiding spirit. The second theme that you'll come to beyond the Climatron is nature itself. And here you'll find many depictions of animals which are dear to the artists, which they feel strongly about. One particularly moving piece is "Young Giraffe Playing" and it's moving because the artist is depicting a time fifty years ahead when those animals will no longer exist in Zimbabwe and he's almost warning people to protect these animals. So you'll see themes of that nature and other themes relating to the ecology and the animals struggle to survive in the situation today. The third theme is all about family and you'll see some remarkable themes here from an aunt admonishing a young child; to the Muroora, the daughters-in-law bringing beer for a wedding for a celebration that's going to happen; through to a group of sisters meeting after a long period and discussing family affairs-a rather moving section of the exhibition. Well, there is a sales component to the whole exhibition and that is in the Brookings Center behind the Climatron and here you'll find work by very famous artists, many of them have passes on already, really collectors' items. But also, work by unacknowledged artists and then those group of people in between who are striving to get a name for themselves and who are becoming well-known now also.

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Introduction to the exhibition is an episode from Missouri Botanical Garden - CHAPUNGU nature, man, and myth by Missouri Botanical Garden.

This episode is 2:24 long.

This episode was published on Jun 25, 2007.

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