In conversation with Fungai Marima, Tanaka Mazivanhanga and Akudzwe Elsie Chiwa Please join artHARARE as we have a conversation about missing home and living in the diaspora with these three incredible artists. More info at: https://www.artharare.com/

Please join artHARARE’s directors, Aya Koudounaris and Richard Mudariki, as they sit in conversation with artHARARE 2021 curatorial consultant, Mike Mavura.

Robert Machiri and Brother Mbango close first edition of artHARARE with Pungwe Live from Swakopmond in Namibia

Live performance for artHARARE on IGTV and Facebook Live. Ananya is a 20 year old musician who was born and raised in Zimbabwe. After attending high school in Zimbabwe and Europe, she moved to New York City to study Fashion Design and follow her musical passion playing piano and guitar.

“There is no greater reward than being able to educate the minds of our future generations”. - Farai Simoyi Farai Simoyi. From fashion designer to fashion executive, this global leader exemplifies the business of international fashion and development. Honored on the pages of FORBES and featured by the likes of Vogue, Fast Company, Newsweek, ABC News, New York Magazine, and Essence Magazine for her contributions to the fashion industry, Simoyi's purpose: "creating global brands and developing emerging brands and creatives." Behind her, Simoyi has 15 years of experience designing and consulting for some of the most globally recognized celebrities with fashion brands and industry staples such as Beyonce, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Justin Timberlake, Rachel Roy, Anne Klein, and Robert Rodriguez to name a few. Simoyi has also accumulated esteemed awards and toured the world speaking on topics such as Global Fashion Development, Sustainability, Manufacturing in Africa, and Diversity & Inclusion at renowned institutions such as Tapestry Inc., Fashion Institute of Technology, West Virginia University, Yale University, U.S. Dept of State Educational & Cultural Affairs, US. Embassy of Zimbabwe, & Standard Bank Incubator of South Africa. Following her impressive competitive delivery in the first season of the ‘Netflix’ fashion design competition series, ‘Next in Fashion,’ Simoyi continues her mission to promote her design work while elevating global artisans and designers through her company, The Narativ, in collaboration with NY NOW and Start by WGSN. In 2020, Simoyi joined Thomas Jefferson University as the Program Director and Professor of Fashion Design Programs.

Ethel Irene Kabwato was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe into a creative family and has won prizes for her poetry and prose. Although Ms Kabwato’s childhood ambition was to be a journalist, she became an English teacher. Her dream was only fulfilled in 2008 when she attained a degree in Media Studies with the Zimbabwe Open University. She writes for various publications and still pursues her career as an English teacher. Her work appears in various anthologies, namely, Sunflowers in Your Eyes, Writing Free, Writing Now, Between Two Rocks (through a Writer’s Exchange Programme with the University of Michigan’s ZCCD), Light a Candle, Ghetto Diary (an advanced-level literature set book) and an educational textbook by Scholastic (USA). She is the editor of a poetry anthology, Traps, a collection of poems by Zimbabwean women writers. Most recently Ms Kabwato’s poetry was featured in New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby (UK). In 2004, she participated in the British Council Crossing Borders Project. Ms Kabwato has been invited to read her work at institutions such as Rhodes University and University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. She has worked extensively with school children as a mentor, teacher and creative writing adjudicator. In 2008, she was a guest at Amnesty International Festival in Amsterdam which culminated in Slum Cinema, a voluntary initiative which seeks to empower disadvantaged communities through multi-media work. Ms Kabwato, along with another poet, was a guest writer at the Guardian Hay Festival (Wales, UK) while on a reading tour of Sunflowers in Your Eyes.