Tatenda Chidora: If Covid Was a Colour

What do we recall from the COVID-19 pandemic? Two and a half years of global isolation, communal fear, countless deaths, collective grief. Two and a half years of introspection, of promises to be held once the nightmare was over, of life in the digital realm.

Tatenda Chidora's solo exhibition If Covid was a Colour reimagines the pandemic not as a time of dread but as a period of potential renewal, using vivid colour and striking portraiture to transform lockdown-era objects like surgical masks and latex gloves into fashionable icons. Blending fine art and fashion photography, Tatenda contrasts black skin against bold surfaces and textures to create images of crisp, sculptural tension, treating the black body as a site of magic, power and resilience. Born from months of reflective isolation, the series moves beyond the tropes of catastrophe and grief to ask a more poetic question - what did Covid actually look like? - offering a deeply humanising, introspective vision of beauty amid chaos.

“I have never spent this much time in my apartment, life slowed down for everyone, but this was a good time to reflect. […] I needed to start seeing daily moments through different eyes.”, the artist recalls.

This exhibition, curated by Marcia Harvey Isaksson, is part of the Southnord Artfest 2026 - The Other Side of the Mountain and enters into dialogue with the overarching themes of the Artfest which include routes, movement, migration, landscapes and cityscapes. Throughout the seven sites of the Artfest, we explore what we can learn about our modern landscapes and urban environments when we view them from different perspectives? What distances and proximities do they create? The COVID-19 pandemic was a period in time that tested our infrastructure, our social structure, our sense of solidarity and community. What lessons did we learn then? What have we forgotten?

Tatenda Chidora is an award-winning Zimbabwean visual artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mainly known for commercial and fine art photography, his mode of visual storytelling intends to both investigate and celebrate the multifaceted expression of blackness. His work uses elements of performance and play to explore themes of place, identity and manhood. Through his iconoclastic portraiture, he is questioning the traditional notions of masculinity, and its ever-expanding potential ‘to be soft’. He draws from fashion, history and cultural aesthetics to create dynamic compositions that offer alternative visions of being, imbued with a sense of connection, imagination and community. In 2023, Tatenda was the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Humanity Vol. 5 Series Winner. In 2022, he was shortlisted for the Contemporary African Photography Prize. He has participated in numerous festivals and exhibitions around the world, such as 1:54 London, amongst others.