The work Harare is part of the photo series Museum of the Revolution, which Guy Tillim took in the African metropolises of Johannesburg, Durban, Maputo, Beira, Harare, Nairobi, Kigali, Kampala, Addis Ababa, Luanda, Libreville, Accra, Dakar, Dar es Salaam. In it, the artist showed in 2016 an Africa with hope for growing prosperity, economic development, improved infrastructures, and increasing educational opportunities. Tillim designed a counter-image to the then prevailing international press reports, which mostly focused on the negative headlines from Africa and continued long-lasting racism in this one-sided reporting.
Since his beginnings in the 1980s, Guy Tillim has used photography as a medium that reveals the fractures and contradictions of South Africa as a post-colonial society. Despite precise location and situation information, the artist does not develop any photographically usable journalistic findings, but rather draws us into the cycle of interpretations and standpoints, perspectives and interpretations. He calls for careful and repeated observation.
