Kungoni Centre of Culture and Art, Mua Mission, Malawi

Database

prayer_01

Leonard Chikasasa (d. 1981) was known as Kamitondo (Mr. Little Mortars) because he made his living by carving mortars for domestic use. Claude Boucher Chisale encouraged him to attempt the human figure. ‘Prayer’ is one of his earliest experiments (1973). It stands in the chapel of the Convent of the Poor Clares in Lilongwe, Malawi and is seen here at the centre of the sisters’ devotion. Two of Leonard Chikasasa’s sons also worked at Kungoni Centre.

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Jibu Sani is another of the earliest carvers to have associated themselves with Kungoni Centre. Although a Muslim, he draws on many traditions for his work. His ‘Expectant Mother’ (1978), which depicts Mary with the child in her womb, proved controversial when it was commissioned for St. Peter’s Major Seminary, Zomba, Malawi. However, it is now brought to the front of the chapel to replace a more conventional image during Advent. Jibu Sani is still active at Kungoni Centre, where his four sons, nephew and brother-in-law have also established themselves as carvers.

The database project is still in the process of becoming fully developed. The aim is to make original and new material relating to Kungoni Centre searchable and accessible to visitors and scholars.

Each entry has a unique KAP (Kungoni Art Project) Number, which serves to place it on the Database, and is a new and comprehensive system of reference for Kungoni work.

KAP Data is divided into three parts.

logo_01 KUNGONI PEOPLE

KUNGONI PEOPLE is concerned with the people and communities, around Mua Mission, throughout Malawi and ‘beyond the Lake’, who have contributed to the development of Kungoni Centre throughout the four decades of its existence. Its achievement in art requires consideration not so much as the work of a single directing mind or a collective but as the product of numerous individual artistic vocations, with due regard to ties of family and kinship, personal influence and the relationship between master and pupil, often extending over several generations.

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logo_01 KUNGONI WORK

KUNGONI WORK is concerned with the artistic activity of Kungoni Centre. It embraces work in all media: public commissions and objets d’art, and some for utility; creations that deserve their place in the historical record and ‘airport art’ that is sold to pay school fees; religious and secular. The artists’ choice of themes constitutes an encyclopaedia of their lived experience in rural Malawi at a time of rapid social change. At its best their work develops and draws on a rich visual idiom to express their everyday concerns and the cosmology of the three peoples (Chewa, Ngoni and Yao) that inhabit the Mua area.

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logo_01 KUNGONI TREES

KUNGONI TREES is concerned with the trees and timber that are important to the artists of Kungoni Centre, both as material for carving and for their symbolic or practical value. Deforestation is a pressing concern for Kungoni Centre, and directly threatens its livelihood. Its response has been to emphasize the dignity that art and carving, when conducted responsibly, might confer on trees, and to engage in a programme of record and, where possible, civic education and replanting.

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KAP Map

KAP Map explains in detail the structure of KAP Data. A version will be published online on completion.

KAP Data holds currently 3200+ entries and 8800+ photographs. In addition to a detailed catalogue of Kungoni Centre itself, work from throughout Malawi (both religious and secular) is represented, as well as six African countries and twelve countries Worldwide. Sixteen substantial private collections of Kungoni work have been archived. The oldest work (by Claude Boucher Chisale) dates to the 1950’s; and any interesting new piece that is produced at Kungoni Centre is recorded before it is dispatched or offered for sale. We have biographies of over 220 artists who have gathered around Kungoni Centre over the years, together with their principal patrons and others who have contributed to the development of Kungoni Centre. KAP Data is supported by a substantial body of scanned documents and a library of some 450 digitalized DVD’s of original film footage.

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