Lomedy Mhako Challenges Notions of Cleansing in Provocative New Exhibition at Mbare Art Space

A solo exhibition by Zimbabwean artist Lomedy Mhako opened at Mbare Art Space on Friday, 20 February 2026, drawing a diverse crowd of art lovers, creatives and cultural practitioners.

By Plot Mhako

Titled Kushambidzwa: Lines of Discomfort and curated by Tafadzwa Mushayi, the exhibition proposes cleansing not as an act of purity, but as one of confrontation.

Set against a backdrop of economic instability, social fatigue and emotional imbalance, the show challenges audiences to acknowledge disorder before attempting to resolve it.

Rather than presenting cleansing as erasure, Mhako frames it as an ethical act of recognition an admission that discomfort already exists within the social, political and economic structures people inhabit.

The exhibition unfolds as a spatial and bodily encounter. Upon entering the gallery, visitors are invited to remove their shoes and step onto river sand. The gesture moves beyond gallery etiquette into symbolism. Removing one’s shoes becomes a temporary shedding of daily roles authority, professional identity, parental responsibility and social expectation. In that unburdening, the body becomes receptive, introducing a shared sense of humility and vulnerability.

Lomedy Mhako’s multidisciplinary practice spans installation and object-based work, alongside a collaborative painting process with his mother, Sipiwe Mhako, which he terms kudzura. His work resists confinement to a single medium, instead embracing instability as a deliberate method.

Throughout the exhibition, linear structures recur vertical alignments, ordered repetitions and controlled formations. These lines reflect human intervention within social systems. While deliberate and disciplined in appearance, the stability they suggest remains uncertain. Order is visible, but its reliability is questioned.

The work also turns inward to the domestic sphere. Everyday household objects chairs, mops, pegs, brooms and cooking tools are presented not merely as symbols but as rurimi rwamai (mother’s tongue). These objects represent a primary language learned through repetition, labour and care long before formal education. They carry memory, discipline and embodied knowledge.

By reorganising these materials into structured vertical formations, Lomedy Mhako mirrors the systems that shape everyday life systems that are internalised, endured and rarely interrogated.

Kushambidzwa does not offer solutions or easy resolution. Instead, it insists on admission before healing. Within honest acknowledgment, the exhibition suggests, lies a form of kunyaradzwa comfort found not through escape, but through shared awareness and collective witnessing.

Functioning less as a conventional display and more as a ceremony, the exhibition invites participation, humility and reflection in a world defined by visible and invisible lines. The opening was well attended, with guests from across sectors praising Mhako’s creativity and the exhibition’s thought-provoking approach.

“I chose local materials that I connect with deeply, materials that many Zimbabweans can also relate to,” said Lomedy Mhako.

“It means a lot to me that people were able to interpret the work in ways that resonate with how I understand it. I’m truly grateful that they embraced my story and, through their participation, became part of the artwork and the artistic process itself.”