His unique art work of making drums and sculpting figures is celebrated by the international art world, while at home he is ignored.

Mr Samson Mudzunga (68) of Shanzha in Dopeni is a world-acclaimed master of huge Venda drums and a sculptor. On February 25, this year, Mudzunga thrilled Hawaiians when he displayed his work and performance at the Contemporary Art Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Part of his performance was the renewal of his marriage vows inside his drum. He crawled into the drum, opened the hinged door and, while inside, his wife Dorcas beat the drum while singing. As a symbol of showing respect to her husband, Dorcas kneeled next to the drum, while Mudzunga emerged with different attire.

His first drum was a figure of an aeroplane and fish in the 1990s, while he exhibited sculptures for the first time in Johannesburg in 1988. Some of the huge wooden drums carved by Mudzunga depict male and female figures.He makes a door for entering each drum, while they are also decorated with colourful minwenda.

He has already dug himself a grave at his kraal. He carved a coffin, put it inside the grave and decorated it with the Venda traditional dress, minwenda. When he presented his first funeral performance on Saturday, June 29, 1996, it was received with mixed feelings by the police. “The police stopped me when I wanted to be buried alive, because they could not understand how I do things and the performance took place the following day on a Sunday,” he said.

He had performed in the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York on September 23, 2004. Earlier this year, before his visit to Honolulu, Mudzunga performed at the Jack Shainman gallery in New York. One of his biggest drums is on display in London.

As part of expressing his frustration for the lack of support and appreciation from the local spheres of government, he carved a fish drum last year and named it Mutsiko Venda, loosely translated as “oppression in Venda”.

“I no longer regard myself as under the Thulamela Municipality; I have received no support from those people. I am now working and relying on the Makhado Municipality. At Makhado, they care about me, they appreciate my artwork,” he said. Mudzunga said that he will be going to Germany for three months soon.