When I am not at my Harare art studio, I live with my partner Clive Stockil, in the south East of Zimbabwe at Mahenye Village, adjacent to Gonarezhou National Park, (near Chilo Gorge Safari Lodge and Jamanda Community Wilderness Area) and in the Save Valley Conservancy. Together with our Mahenye xangana community and our respective children/grandchildren, (Kelli, Glenn, Jade and Rayne), we co-exist with elephants and cattle, crops and baobabs… with African wild dogs, pangolins and nyala, with lions and goats…Numerous difficult challenges offset by a few joyous challenges!

There is always an ‘elephant in the room’…. or two or three….

Chilo Gorge Safari Lodge is set high on a rocky gorge overlooking the sands of the Save River, literally on the contact zone of Gonarezhou National Park’s wilderness and Chief Mahenye’s village; the contact zone between wildlife and community, elephants and nguni cattle….

Save Valley Conservancy and Gonarezhou National Park are home to the big five wildlife and, surrounded as they are by rural communities, the man made boundaries are also corridors, contact zones for community wildlife challenges… all part of the GLTFCA

I treasure elephants, their strong family bonds and wisdom are endlessly fascinating to me and to the many local and international tourists and nature lovers who relish seeing magnificent elephants in the wild, but those same elephants are harvesting precious hardwood trees and baobabs at an unsustainable rate, plus communities have to live with those same elephants raiding their subsistence crops.

impressions of an elephant trunk…

The elephant in the room…

Gonarezhou National Park, Chilo Gorge Safari Lodge, Malilangwe Trust, (Singita Pamushana) and Save Valley Conservancy are an attraction for eco-tourism and cultural tourism into Zimbabwe, meaningful low impact tourism, which can raise awareness and support of both rural communities and the wildlife they live with….

In an era of worldwide over-tourism, commercialization, mass travel and instant experiences, these unique wilderness and community experiences offer a deeper understanding of what it means to live close to nature, in touch with wilderness; to understand the challenges that communities face when living with wildlife, and to celebrate diverse cultures.

We share a small family subsistence plot near to Chilo Gorge Safari Lodge, which we call Kaya Nyala, in Chief Mahenye’s village, on the edge of the wilderness of Gonarezhou. Here we try to grow some basic crops for our needs yet maintain some pristine riverine woodland, protecting a strong biodiversity. Here I sketch, paint, write and collaborate with local dancers, and with clay, fabric, baobab and beading crafters. Cultural festivals loom large in our lives as a joyful means of connecting with each other, of preserving and adapting culture and conservation in tandem. Embracing art, dance, craft, culture, community and nature. A truly ‘wild life’ it is that we lead…in all its forms… #conservation #art and #allthingsconnected .

Culture at Mahenye and indeed in most of the GLTFCA communities, remains integral to every day life, and many young people follow in the nimble footsteps of their elders in the dance teams…

A lead dancer in the Mahenye dance team.. photo taken a few years ago..

A few years ago, 2018, I painted “Dancing with my shadow”, acrylic on canvas board, framed with Pod mahogany, size 4 x 3 feet… now in a private collection.

In my acrylic painting, a woman dancer from Mozambique, who had joined us for a dance fest at Chilo a few years ago, stamps on the earth, dancing accompanied only by her shadow, beating out her solitary rhythm into the dust of Africa, while overall looms her totem, or could it be her nemesis?!… An Ndhlovu, an nzou (an elephant) in the background, half obscured, but a force nevertheless….

There are two messages in this painting…

one:

with this painting, I embrace the questions:
when I dance, when I interact socially, who am I actually dancing with? who am I actually talking to…..?
do I feel more distant and isolated today than in the past?
Is family identity, (family Totem), as important as it once was?
Am I merely dancing with my shadow, isolated and disempowered, or is the power of family, the power of totem, still as strong as before?

How can sustainable tourism link families, and support and uplift local cultures worldwide?

Can dance, music, clothing culture link communities across borders, create active pathways, budulas?!

In the past, families worldwide lived together more closely, were more reliant on each other for support, love, marriage and culture….now that many people are emigrants, immigrants, dispersing widely from their family homes, crossing borders and often relying on technology for communication, we interact and see each other in a different way.
Although now we often “dance alone”, is the power of our respective cultures enough to connect us? Is the power of our Totems – (however we see those)- enough to continue to empower us, inform our decisions about life, marriage and love?

Two:
Dancing with my shadow on the contact zone, kicking up hopeful dust where my footprints merge with plate-sized indentations left by the padded feet of a pachyderm… a delicate duet between me and the shadow of this beast …

with this painting I depict the delicate dance that rural communities and wildlife have to choreograph for mutual survival, for ecosytems and biodiversity, for economic sustainability, for cultural inclusion, world health and mental balance. This is not just an African challenge - it’s a worldwide ‘elephant in the room’ and so my poem grows….

Dancing with my shadow
on the contact zone,
kicking up hopeful dust
where my footprints
merge with plate-sized
indentations left
by the padded feet
of a pachyderm…
a delicate duet
between me
and the shadow
of this beast …

This elephant in the room
looms large in our lives;
this grey Gonarezhou
giant that melts and
melds its immense bulk,

into pruned mopani scrub,
leaving the evidence of its passing

in tremendous tracks
through our fields,
around our homes,
into its home;
our fragile, finite,
shared special space …

Lin Barrie

I am honoured that CCDI, Gaza Trust, the Centre for Cultural Development Initiatives, (including a member of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, Mr Hebert Pikhela), who are planning a ‘Budula Festival’ May/June 2025, (a festival of xangana craft, music, dance and conservation), have chosen my artwork for a flyer to raise awareness of all local and international stakeholders in planning meetings within Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. 
Budula means corridor, means an ‘active pathway’ - and refers to the wildlife/ community corridors -the buffer zones between rural communities and the Gonarezhou, Limpopo and Kruger National Parks ..and the interconnectedness between the xangana communities themselves in the GLTFCA

this all makes sense of the bigger picture of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) which straddles the three countries-  and this cultural festival will raise awareness of conservation and culture in tandem.

On 25th October 2024 we had an initial community local stakeholders meeting at RDC offices in Chiredzi, towards planning a Budula Festival in May June 2025 at Boli, near Gonarezhou.

CCDI board members include Professor Walter Musakwa, Doctor Welhelm Schack, Hebert Phikela, Constance Chirhilele, and Chief Gezani, with Mr. Gift Machukele, the Chiredzi District Assistant Development Coordinator, as the capable chairperson. 

it is an inspiring meeting ..moving forward

…seen from behind, as in the logo, the snail shell is a perfect Fibonacci spiral- a universal building template for #allthingsconnected ! And my constant inspiration in my paintings …. A very satisfying elemental shape…

read here to find out why the giant mollusk is a revered totem of the Chauke clan…

My life as an artist is becoming more and more fulfilling as I feel #allthingsconnected #biodiversity #fibonaccispirals around me- for better or for worse, worldwide we are all affecting, and affected by, the way we tread on our Mother Earth and by the way we respect, or disrespect, every living thing and each others cultures …

#artwithimpact …I paint because I can conceive of doing nothing else, it is my passion- and I hope my art, by hanging on people’s walls, brings joy …but also has impact on some of these issues…
https://wineandwilddogs.art/2024/10/20/art-with-impact-collecting-art/

All Things Connected …. Open this link to view my interview with Story Untold..

all photos and artworks are copyright of Lin Barrie unless otherwise stated.