Zimbabwean artist Pardon Mapondera’s multi-disciplinary practice examines processes of transformation through material re-use and conceptual inquiry into perspective and meaning. Through the use of discarded and everyday objects, his work engages with layered narratives of history, culture, ecology, spirituality, and identity. By recontextualising these materials, Mapondera encourages critical reflection on tradition, memory, waste, and the unseen forces shaping postcolonial African experience. His practice integrates material experimentation with social and philosophical inquiry, addressing both collective conditions and individual subjectivity both collective experience and personal consciousness.

Born in 1992 in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe where he continues to live and work, Pardon Mapondera obtained his certificate from the National Gallery Visual Art and Design School in Harare, in 2013.

Notably, Mapondera’s work is included in Second Nature | Manyonga, commissioned for Zimbabwe’s 8th Pavilion, at the Venice Biennale in 2026. In 2025 Mapondera participated in the Indibano Art Residency in Dallas, USA, which culminated in Crossing Lines, a curated exhibition of work by three emerging artists from the Southern African region, presented in Dallas. In 2025, Mapondera also presented his first museum exhibition, entitled Dotipaiwo Chiyedza, at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Selected group exhibitions include: Gathering at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe in 2023; Open Plot at THK Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa and Kutonhodzwa Kwachauruka at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Mutare, both in 2022; 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House in London, UK and Immaterial at THK Gallery in Cologne, Germany, both in 2021; and Young Artist at Gallery Delta, Harare, Zimbabwe, both in 2020.