Chapungu Gallery At Centerra

There is a Chapungu sculpture park located in Zimbabwe too! Very interesting. This gallery and sculpture park covers family life, hardships, religion, mythology and a host of other things that bring us into a clearer focus as to how some tribes live in the Zimbabwe region of Africa.
Much of the sculpture park deals with family life which was ok but at first I rolled my eyes and thought ‘Oh, how typical of Loveland to make this so family themed.’ It dawned on me then that maybe family actually IS important to the people this sculpture park covers and it may just happen to be convenient for members of the city council to make it a ’ family themed’ park to their own advantage. Loveland’s past with art work has a checkerboard effect for sure. The city is HUGE into sculptures and I have been to masonries in town to see how statues are made. At the same time local politicians and crazy people have actually gone so far as to accuse statues as being pornographic in town. On another occasion a lady went into the Loveland art museum last year and broke the glass and shredded a controversial painting of Jesus and then sat down on the floor to wait for the cops to arrest her. It was later found out that this woman was from actually from Montana and there are PLENTY of crazy people up there!
As I walked through the park it covered a variety of topics in certain sectors of the park. As I said much of it focuses on family life but also the power and love a woman and mother can have. One sculpture that I found compelling was a mother and a daughter embracing each other. In the description below it said that the daughter was diagnosed as being HIV positive and the doctors sent her home, saying there was nothing they could do for her. The mother accepted her daughters situation and loved her all the same despite her HIV diagnosis. I found it very touching. I don’t know if these tribes in Zimbabwe have this unconditional love but if they do it is something we could certainly learn from.
Other sculptures I enjoyed was a sculpture of the Chapungu which is a mythological bird which is highly revered and operates similarly to a Phoenix bird. Rebirth and death are themes with this bird.
Another sculpture I liked was the confusion and frustration with some of their work being labeled as ‘polluting’ to the environment. From their point of view some of the things they have to do to earn a living (mostly agriculture is how these people live) others describe as polluting the environment. While I am a greenie it was interesting to read another point of view on the subject. There were various other sculptures that I found fascinating and liked the small venue where they have small concerts and other performances peppered with small ponds and sculptures. The meandering paths are great and you can spend a good portion of an afternoon going through the whole park.
What I found very disturbing and this brings me back to the whole checkerboard thing that I feel the people of Loveland has with it’s art was that several sculptures were vandalized. One sculpture had a whole head missing and another had a sculpture pushing a tire. Half the tire was missing. I found it very disrespectful not only to art but to the park, the sculptors who made them and the people that they were depicting. While the park is not fenced in and there is no security I can only hope that this was a rare occurrence and the rest of the sculptures will be left alone.

phenomenal!!! the owners are so well informed and highly