Tafadzwa Nomphanelo Makwabarara Author

Tafadzwa Nomphanelo Makwabarara is a Zimbabwean-born curator currently based at the Sainsbury Centre. She is the newly appointed Curator of Cultural Empowerment, focusing on encouraging critical thinking, cooperation and collaboration on universal contemporary issues through the inclusion and re-engagement of minority and marginalised groups in society. At the Sainsbury Centre, Tafadzwa has curated Heroin Falls as part of the Why Do We Take Drugs? season and been project curator on The Camera Never Lies: Challenging Images from The Incite Project for What Is Truth?
Tafadzwa previously worked for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe as Curator of Monuments where she oversaw 53 cultural heritage sites across four provinces, with responsibility for the management, conservation, preservation and restoration of monuments throughout Zimbabwe’s northern region for nine years. During that time, she also collaborated with several African artists and cultural groups during exhibitions and festivals. One such collaboration was with the Magamba Network to partner in hosting the Shoko Festiva, Zimbabwe’s biggest festival of urban culture combining arts, new media and civic activism. Tania Moore is Head of Exhibitions at the Sainsbury Centre where she has implemented a programme that tackles the most urgent questions facing society. She has curated Darwin in Paradise Camp: Yuki Kihara for Can the Seas Survive Us?; Lindsey Mendick: Hot Mess for Why Do We Take Drugs?; and In Event of Moon Disaster, Liquid Gender, and Jeffrey Gibson: no simple word for time for What is Truth? Publications include Can the Seas Survive Us? (2024), What Is Truth? (2024); Rhythm and Geometry: Constructivist Art in Britain Since 1951 (2021); and Henry Moore: Friendships and Legacies (2020). In 2019, she received the New Collecting Award from the Art Fund to acquire sculptors’ drawings by contemporary women and non-binary artists for the Sainsbury Centre collection.