Maxwell Mutanda (born 1983) is a Zimbabwean artist, designer, design researcher, and businessperson. He is the co-founder of the design firm Studio Tale, based out of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, Harare, and

Cape Town, South Africa Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

. Mutanda uses

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

and architectural practice to make

sustainable Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

participatory design.

Early life and education

Born in

Harare, Zimbabwe Harare ( ), formerly Salisbury, is the capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metropolitan province. The city is situa ...

in 1983, Mutanda studied at the

Bartlett School of Architecture The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, also known as The Bartlett, is the academic centre for the study of the built environment at University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. It is home to thirteen departments, with specialisms incl ...

in London. In 2020, he received an MSc degree in sustainable urban development and Sheehan Scholarship at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Career

Muntanda co-founded Studio Tale with his design partner, Safia Qureshi. Online magazine

Design Indaba Design Indaba is a trademark and brand founded and run by Interactive Africa in 1995 with a focus on design and under the slogan "A better world through creativity". Consisting of an online publication and a series of events and creative projects, ...

writes that Studio Tale “experiments across disciplines with a portfolio that includes architecture, urban exploration, production innovation to critical design and communications.” The firm designed vendor upgrades for Harare street vendors in 2016. The same year, It was working a way to create "pop-up churches" inspired by catholics in the Philippines holding mass in empty malls. Mutanda received a fellowship from IdeasCity New Orleans, an initiative of the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

in New York, the Africa’sOut! Artist-in-Residence at Denniston Hill, New York (2018), and the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

’s ColabNowNow Residency, in

Maputo, Mozambique Maputo () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088,449 (as of 2017) distributed ov ...

. In 2020, he received an Eyebeam fellowship to study the "mobile data gap in sub-Saharan Africa". Also in 2020, he received a grant from the

Graham Foundation The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit that "fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realize ...

for his project ''(In)Voluntary Mutations''. In the 2020–2021 season, Mutanda was awarded a fellowship from the

Akademie Schloss Solitude The Akademie Schloss Solitude is a foundation under public law. The main aspect of the Akademie is to promote mainly younger, particularly gifted artists and scientists by means of residency fellowships and also by organizing events and exhibitio ...

Exhibitions

Mutanda's work was featured at the

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, also known as the Louisiana, is an art museum located north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Attracting over 700,000 guests annually, the Louisiana is Scandinavia's most visited museum for Modern art, modern and contempor ...

, in

Copenhagen, Denmark Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the Øresund strait. The Øres ...

and the Arc en Rêve Centre d'Architecture,

Bordeaux, France Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

, both in 2015. In addition, the work of Studio Tale was in the Oslo Architecture Triennale in

Oslo, Norway Oslo ( or ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of towns and cities in Norway, most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a Counties of Norway, county and a Municipalities of Norway, municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a populat ...

in 2019, the Biennale Architettura, Venice in 2014 and 2016, the

Chicago Architecture Biennial The Chicago Architecture Biennial is an international exhibition of architectural ideas, projects and displays. It seeks "to provide a platform for groundbreaking architectural projects and spatial experiments that demonstrate how creativity and ...

and the

London Design Festival London Design Festival is a citywide cultural event that takes place over nine days every September across London. It was founded by John Sorrell and Ben Evans in 2003 and will stage its 23rd edition from 13 to 21 September 2025. In an article ...

in 2015.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mutanda, Maxwell Living people 1983 births Zimbabwean artists Zimbabwean architects Zimbabwean designers British architects Black British artists 21st-century British designers Alumni of the Bartlett