The stairway to heaven.
A disabling environment.
By Nyadzombe Nyampenza
As the Shona proverb warns, ‘’Seka urema wafa’’. The wheelchair in Tapiwa Tekede’s Can’t Sleep looks ominously vacant. It opens the floodgates to empathy.
In his drawing Tapiwa shows a wheelchair parked in front of a stairway. It is symbolic of the exclusion of people with disabilities. There is no person in the chair. This deflects misguided sympathy. Tekede invites the viewer to inhabit the space. The work challenges perceptions about disability. It dismisses the notion of disability being an individual's essence. Interaction with the environment becomes the defining factor.
Tekede’s piece is composed of emotive colors. An earthy brown foregrounds the sunny upper half. A blue stairway figuratively bridges the two halves. The odds are clearly insurmountable. Without change to the status quo only the privileged will ascend.
