This project confronts digital colonialism as the continued domination of a periphery through unequal global relations of ownership, dependency, and control. In Zimbabwe, as elsewhere, digital infrastructures are not neutral systems: they are shaped by platforms, software, hardware, standards, networks, data regimes and other actors that reproduce colonial patterns of extraction and asymmetrical power. The project traces the spatial and relational logics through which these colonial powers manifest in Zimbabwe’s digital infrastructures, while asking how communities live, feel and creatively resist these conditions. Using mixed-methods and arts-based research, it integrates network analysis, critical cartography and artistic practice, grounded in situated knowledges.

Rather than treating Zimbabwe as a peripheral case study, the project approaches it as a site from which digitality itself can be rethought through situated knowledge and African-centred imaginaries.

Paul Takunda Chiwona produces research-based art formats. His practice, both as an artist and researcher, links social justice with questions of political, cultural and technological infrastructure. Paul’s work is conceptual and process-driven. Using artistic methods as epistemic tools, he critically confronts conditions of networked society; particularly on the topics of digitalization, water, and health.

Paul was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, and grew up in a small town in Bavaria. After studying Media and Communication Design in Stuttgart, he completed a master’s degree in Social Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. During his studies, Paul worked as a graphic designer and award-winning copywriter for various creative agencies.

Currently, Paul is pursuing a PhD at the institute of Arts x Science: Transformation Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and Johannes Kepler University Linz. His dissertation focuses on digital colonialism.