Every seed pod was gathered by hand, each in its own season. We returned to the concession at different times of the year, revisiting the same spots as the landscape changed. That cycle of seasons mirrors the transformation we see in ourselves over time. Masks let us hide that change, but Tatenda asks: “Without the elements we stand upon for definition, what do we, in our purest form, stand for?”

Every mask starts on foot. Over several weeks, Tatenda walked the concession and gathered the pods and bark himself, then reshaped them by hand into botanical sculptures: vessels built to hold a single idea rather than a single flower, that the masks we wear are only ever temporary. Working as photographer, creative director and sculptor, he turns each piece into a second skin, worn briefly and then shed, the way nature itself is always changing.

On location, the reserve becomes a collaborator in its own right. With me behind the camera for film and stills and Brian Mashele as the central figure, the land provides the material and the work reveals what was already there. Identity, like nature, is never fixed. It grows, it sheds, it becomes something else entirely, and Metamorphosis leaves that question open.

The longer we spent on the concession, the more visible the temporary nature of everything became. The turning of the seasons, in the vast and in the very small, became the thread we kept returning to, and it later grew into Ancient Frequency. These two films hold that change.

Out of that attention to the seasons grew Ancient Frequency, an audiovisual installation by Tatenda Chidora made in collaboration with me, and now a permanent piece in the Gallery of Treasures at Singita Lebombo Lodge. The Gallery is a room of objects found on the concession and works by artists from across Southern Africa, all made to a single brief: let nature inspire. Along the ridges of the Lebombo mountains, a conversation is unfolding. The installation captures a fragment of it: an invitation to listen to the heartbeat of the land.

Ancient Frequency · A sensory dialogue by Tatenda Chidora, realised in collaboration with Julian Robinet. Text adapted from the artist statement.

SINGITA · AFRICA IS… · 2024–2026

METAMORPHOSIS
Behind the scenes

Pamushana · Sweni · Kruger
2024–2026
Film and stills

Metamorphosis grew out of a commissioned trip to the Singita Pamushana concession in Zimbabwe in December 2024. Singita has a way of showing a place that is hard to put into words: the guides point you to details a wildlife experience rarely shows, and to the cycles of growth, decay and renewal that keep reinventing the landscape.

Those cycles became the starting point for a body of work by photographer Tatenda Chidora, which I followed from the first mask to the final exhibition, on film and in stills.

Singita Pamushana, Zimbabwe
2024

Tatenda Chidora is a Zimbabwean photographer and visual artist, born and raised in Harare, now based in Johannesburg.

He studied photography at the Tshwane University of Technology and works across fine art, fashion and commercial photography, part of a generation often described as new African photography. Masks have run through his work for years, from the surgical-mask portraits of If Covid Was a Colour onwards, as a way of asking questions about identity, masculinity and belonging. At Pamushana in December 2024, the seed pods lying on the paths gave that fascination a new material, and Metamorphosis began with a single mask.

Singita Kruger National Park
2025

Every seed pod was gathered by hand, each in its own season. We returned to the concession at different times of the year, revisiting the same spots as the landscape changed. That cycle of seasons mirrors the transformation we see in ourselves over time. Masks let us hide that change, but Tatenda asks: “Without the elements we stand upon for definition, what do we, in our purest form, stand for?”

Singita Kruger National Park
March 2026

Every mask starts on foot. Over several weeks, Tatenda walked the concession and gathered the pods and bark himself, then reshaped them by hand into botanical sculptures: vessels built to hold a single idea rather than a single flower, that the masks we wear are only ever temporary. Working as photographer, creative director and sculptor, he turns each piece into a second skin, worn briefly and then shed, the way nature itself is always changing.

Singita Kruger National Park
March 2026

On location, the reserve becomes a collaborator in its own right. With me behind the camera for film and stills and Brian Mashele as the central figure, the land provides the material and the work reveals what was already there. Identity, like nature, is never fixed. It grows, it sheds, it becomes something else entirely, and Metamorphosis leaves that question open.

Singita concessions
2024–2026

The longer we spent on the concession, the more visible the temporary nature of everything became. The turning of the seasons, in the vast and in the very small, became the thread we kept returning to, and it later grew into Ancient Frequency. These two films hold that change.

Gallery of Treasures, Singita Lebombo Lodge
2026

Out of that attention to the seasons grew Ancient Frequency, an audiovisual installation by Tatenda Chidora made in collaboration with me, and now a permanent piece in the Gallery of Treasures at Singita Lebombo Lodge. The Gallery is a room of objects found on the concession and works by artists from across Southern Africa, all made to a single brief: let nature inspire. Along the ridges of the Lebombo mountains, a conversation is unfolding. The installation captures a fragment of it: an invitation to listen to the heartbeat of the land.

A PULSE WITHIN THE STILLNESS

Using contact microphones, we recorded the inner life of a Lebombo euphorbia: moisture moving through the plant’s tissue, and that tissue slowly expanding under the African sun.

In this sanctuary of sound, time is measured not in minutes but in vibrations. What appears still is in motion. Even in silence, the wilderness is vibrantly, audibly alive.

THE SENTINEL OF THE RIDGES

The Lebombo euphorbia (Euphorbia confinalis) rises from volcanic soil along rocky outcrops and grows nowhere but the Lebombo mountains. With the power both to heal and to harm, these sculptural succulents have stood against the horizon for centuries: observing, documenting, enduring.

A toxic, milky latex runs through their ribbed branches, a defensive “blood” that has pulsed through droughts and floods alike. To listen to the euphorbia is to yield to a process much greater than us.

Ancient Frequency · A sensory dialogue by Tatenda Chidora, realised in collaboration with Julian Robinet. Text adapted from the artist statement.

CREDITS

Metamorphosis — Tatenda Chidora, in collaboration with Julian Robinet
Artworks and photographs — Tatenda Chidora
Film and behind-the-scenes stills — Julian Robinet
Presented by — Singita, as part of Africa Is…
Models — Brian Mashele and Secret
Edit — Stitch Post Production 
Sound & Mix — Supernormal

On show in the gallery at Singita Kruger National Park until December 2026.
Prints are limited editions; part of each sale goes to the Singita Lowveld Trust.