Zambia’s Stary Mwaba mines the toxic legacy of the Copperbelt’s ‘black mountains’

Stary Mwaba Title: Ichilogoma. Medium: Acrylic on perforated newspaper. Mirrored paintings of a young man in orange T-shirt and orange T-shirt pointing. A chequered tunnel can be seen behind him.Stary Mwaba

Zambia’s notorious “black mountains” – huge heaps of mining waste that scar the Copperbelt skyline – are deeply personal to Stary Mwaba, one of the country’s leading visual artists.

“As kids, we used to call it ‘mu danger’ – meaning ‘in…

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