Artist: Georgina Maxim

Goodman Gallery presents mixed media textile artist Georgina Maxim’s first solo exhibition in London. Titled Telling Moments, this follows her inclusion in the group show Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at the Barbican which will travel to the Stedelijk Museum in September.

Maxim’s practice is grounded in the style of sewing and mending referred to as dhunge mutunge in Shona. This is a stitch used for putting things together quickly so that they hold. It has been used for generations to create a temporary hold on torn items, often using a thread that did not match the colour or texture of the garment. It is also seen as a stitch for closing scars. Coupled with weaving, crocheting and knitting, Maxim builds her mixed media pieces through this contextually rich gesture of bringing textiles, kinship, and temporality together.

Telling Moments focuses on time and recollection, reflecting the significance of how time it is used, accumulated and valued. Maxim considers the labour of cutting and sewing as an act consumes the clock. However, it is also an act of construction and memory-making, one that enables the search for herself and her mother.

It’s a constant in and out feeling much like how the needle and thread seem to create that very motion - in and out. The works are varied, each representing a time of search within the material and a chance to copy myself out onto the material. It’s as if sewing over and over again is a good deed to the heart. With the hope that the heart will reward me with the clear vision of this woman, my mother.

Georgina Maxim (b. 1980, Harare, Zimbabwe) is both artist and curator. She works with mixed media textiles engaging in sewing, stitching, knitting and weaving to produce her works. In 2012 she co-founded Village Unhu, an artist-run space in Harare that provides studio spaces, exhibitions, workshops and residency programs for young and professional artists.

In 2019, Georgina Maxim presented an installation for the Zimbabwean pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale. In 2024, she was invited by the Barbican and the Stedelijk Museum to take part in the group exhibition Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art. Maxim has also shown at institutions including Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin (2023); Somerset House in London (2022); Musée des Cultures Contemporaines Adama Toungara (MuCAT) in Abidjan (2022); the Bargoin Museum, France (2020); FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, France (2021); MuCAT, Côte d’Ivoire (2022); and Somerset House (2022).

In 2018, Maxim was nominated for the Henrike Grohs Award through the Goethe Institute, Abidjan.

Maxim studied at the University of Chinhoyi. In 2019 she undertook a master’s degree at the University of Bayreuth, Germany (AVVA) to deepen her curatorial practice.