Tributaries, Cosmologies, and Cultural Belongings: Reimagining Zambezia. A Conversation

Abstract

Banji Chona’s artistic practice engages grief, memory, and relationality across human, nonhuman, and more-than-human actors. Drawing on cultural belongings in ethnographic collections and photographs, she works with Indigenous knowledge systems to confront histories of violence and colonialism. Challenging Eurocentric frameworks and foregrounding multisensory and kinesthetic experiences, her work emphasizes care, responsibility, and speculative reimaginings to expand forms of knowledge-making.

Keywords: Zambezia; cultural belongings; the multisensory; nonhuman kin; indigenous languages