Mai Palmberg – “If Zimbabwe’s soul isn’t completely eroded before its nightmare is over, it will be thanks to people in culture”

Mai Palmberg, a Finnish cultural researcher who has done work about Zimbabwe, said her first reaction about Zimbabwe artists was: “How do they have the strength to continue in a situation where everything seems to fall apart, from the availability of bread to decent behaviour among fellow citizens?”

“And yet they continue; if it is not possible to paint in bright colours, the artist paints in grey and brown nuances; if the leading actor moves abroad, someone else is there to fill in. Not to mention people who persist and continue to create and spread culture: publishers like Weaver Press in Harare and amaBooks in Bulawayo, the Amakhosi theatre in Bulawayo, the Book Café in Harare, Harare International Festival of Arts, musicians like Oliver Mtukudzi and many more, and the Delta art gallery.”

“Culture has a wondrous toughness. The authorities and the economic crisis disturb it, but do not have the power to

destroy it. If Zimbabwe’s soul isn’t completely eroded before its nightmare is over, it will be thanks to people in culture,” she said in

an interview published on the Nordic Institute of Southern Africa website.

The full article can be found at http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34101:cultural-researcher-impressed-with-zimbabwean-artists