Every year the Africana Resource Center sponsors the Nelson Mandela Lecture to recognize and introduce the Penn State community to the scholarship of an African civil rights activist.
In 2005, the Africana Research Center and the Department of African and African American Studies initiated the Nelson Mandela Lecture Series to recognize and introduce the Penn State community to the scholarship of an African civil rights activist. The annual lecture is named after Nelson Mandela because he is the by far the most noted civil rights activist who not only changed the sociopolitical structure of South Africa but also challenged the world to have a conscience in addressing human rights.
The Nelson Mandela Lecture Series speaker this year is renown Zimbabwean graphics designer and Professor Emeritus of Design at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design in Boston, Chaz Maviyane-Davies. For over twenty years, Maviyane-Davies’ work has tackled issues of consumerism, health, nutrition, social responsibility, the environment, human rights, and politics.
Born 1952 in Harare, Zimbabwe, graphic designer Chaz Maviyane-Davies based in Cambridge Massachusetts. He is a tenured professor at Massachusetts College of Art & Design. He completes his studies in the UK receiving a BA from Middlesex University London and an MA from the Central School of Art & Design, London.
He has exhibited his work all around the globe from Invitational exhibitions of posters in Colorado, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, France, Ukraine, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, England, Holland to solo exhibitions in Japan, Boston, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Colorado, Newburyport, Israel and Los Angeles.
He has been published in IDEA (Japan), Graphis, Print, Communication Arts, How, Novum, ID Magazine, AIGA Journal, Lucida, Designer (Russia) Adbusters, FID (Korea) Creative Review, Revue Noir, Art Today, Design (UK), Carnet. Most recently his graphics were used this past June 2010 for the 084 issue of Icon Magazine, The Africa Issue.
Maviyane-Davies has received numorous awards and prizes from prestigious bodies around the globe. MFA (Boston), Honor Laureate CIIPE (Colorado), Tapei Poster Biennale, Graphic Design USA, Ekoplagat (Slovakia), Aniwa Award (Ghana) Southern African Film Festival, BRNO Biennale (Czech Republic). Simmons College (Boston), Graphics Association of Zimbabwe
To learn more about Chaz Maviyane-Davies visit: http://www.maviyane.com
