Nairobi — A State of Mind Cooperation Goethe-Institut Nairobi ...

KUB Arena 2012.04 | Press release
Nairobi —
A State of Mind
Cooperation
Goethe-Institut
Nairobi, Kenya
26|10|2012-20|01|2013
Press conference
Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 12 noon
The exhibition is opened for the press at 11 a.m.
Opening
Thursday, October 25, 2012, 7 p.m.
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Jacob Barua (Kenya), Sam Hopkins (Kenya|Great Britain),
Laura Horelli (Finland|Germany), Peterson Kamwathi
Waweru (Kenya), Maasai Mbili (Kenya), James Muriuki
(Kenya), Kevo Stero (Kenya), Studio Propolis (Kenya|Great
Britain)
Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, whose origin goes back to
the 1899 colonial project of extending the railroad from
the coast to Lake Victoria is one of East Africa’s most
important economic hubs and seat of numerous inter-
national organizations. In recent decades it has also
become the center of a dynamic art and cultural scene.
Hand in hand with the local effects of globalization, the
liberalization of the national communication media, the
advent of the internet in the 1990s, and the end of
Daniel arap Moi’s repressive regime in 2002, fundamental
changes have also occurred in the field of art. Despite the
ongoing paucity of state support, numerous independently
organized initiatives and transnational collaborations have
arisen, whose actors share a growing interest in chal-
lenging and critically questioning national narratives and
sociopolitical developments. Against the backdrop of East
Africa’s colonial past and power structures, some of which
still exist today, the presented works in the KUB Arena
develop their own views of their surroundings, their
history and of the constant changes that make up
contemporary Nairobi.
In his series Nairobi—A Utopia in the Eye of the Beholder
(2007–2012), Jacob Barua works with the city’s archi-
tectural landscape, analyzing by means of photographic
documentation the history inscribed in individual build-
ings. All in all, in its conglomeration of widely differing,
often imported styles and techniques, the series draws
attention to Nairobi as a projection screen—a tabula rasa
of implemented fantasies, utopias, and life visions. Laura
Laura
Horelli Horelli, Horelli Horelli by way of contrast, in her video work The Terrace
(2011), returns to a residential complex where a number of
her childhood years were spent. By means of photographs
and video takes within a circumscribed area, she activates
her memory of everyday family life, providing glimpses
into the social structures of Kenyan society in the late
1970s and early 1980s. James Muriuki likewise employs
the medium of photography, although in his case his gaze
is turned on contemporary processes of change and move-
ments in public space—buildings in process of construction
that mark the current texture of the city as symbols of
power, progress, and technology. Observations of their
urban surroundings are the starting point for Peterson Peterson
Peterson
Kamwathi Kamwathi Waweru’ Waweru’s Waweru’ Waweru’ large-format charcoal drawings as
well as the works of Sam Hopkins, Hopkins, Kevo Stero, and the
artist group Maasai Mbili.
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What they all share is reference to a society in which ideas
and modes of life are imported and appropriated under the
influence of historical and current social movements—the
British colonial period and the later dominance of the de-
velopment aid sector, Asiatic »migrant workers,« waves of
refugees, and economically dictated rural depopulation.
Rather than just trace this wealth of concepts and lines of
influence, the artists are interested in extrapolating them
into the present, encountering the city as a potential
sphere of action, and dissecting out hidden structures in
order to project their own pictures of a city–pictures that
open up narratives that go way beyond postcard clichés,
exoticizing external views, and national concepts of
identity.
Naeem Biviji and Bethan Rayner of the Nairobi-based
architecture and design office Studio Propoli Propolis Propoli
developed
an architecture for the occasion of the KUB Arena
exhibition that gives spatial expression to the content of
the project.
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Events
Forgotten Places - Filmscreening
Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 6 p.m.
Filmscreening and talk with Jacob Barua and Eva
Birkenstock.
Guided tour with Eva Birkenstock
Thursday, November 8, 2012, 7 p.m.
Guided tour with KUB Arena curator Eva Birkenstock.
Artist Talk
Thursday, November 8, 2012, 8 p.m.
Nairobi – A State of Mind, artist talk with Jacob Barua and
James Muriuki, introduction Eva Birkenstock
Artist Talk
Thursday, November 15, 2012, 7 p.m.
Maasai Mbili Art Centre, artist talk with Kevo Stero and
Otieno Gomba of the artist group Maasai Mbili, Moderation:
Eva Birkenstock and Kirsten Helfrich
Fashionshow Chokora Wear – Season Two
Saturday, November 17, 2012, 3 p.m.
Fashionshow Chokora Wear – Season Two with Maasai
Mbili and the participants of the workshops, Music:
Westend Jugendtreff, Kenian Catering: HLW Rankweil
The exhibition concept was developed following two
research trips to Nairobi undertaken by Eva Birkenstock
and in close dialog with the participating artists as well as
Johannes Hossfeld, Director of the Goethe-Institut Nairobi,
Kenya.
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Short Biographies
Jacob Barua
Jacob Barua (born 1967) graduated in 1989 from the
University of Warwick (Great Britain), and went on to study
at the National Film, TV and Theatre School in Poland. His
films, such as the elegiac The Cavalier, The Welcoming and
the first poetic documentary in Swahili Forgotten Places,
have been shown at many festivals. He often teams up
with his cinematographer brother Stan Barua, and others,
including Joerg Bühlmann on the haunting Glory.
Passionate about history, he was taught by the Oxford
historian Aidan Williams. Jacob’s seminal historical work,
Shades of Poland, was the first film to be censored in post
Cold War Poland, subsequently the BBC reneged on its plan
to showcase the film. His revelatory My Daddy was a
Cavalryman, which was repeatedly thwarted, took 9 years
to be finally broadcasted. In 1997 Jacob was one of three
producers of a USA film recreating aviator’s Amelia
Earhart’s tragic 1937 attempt to circle the globe. He has
also worked with ARTE and ZDF. An odyssey across remote
areas of Kenya in 2002 resulted in Jacob’s civil rights
documentary Taking Action. He was the director of the
Zanzibar International Film Festival (2005–2006), having
trained in Festival and Events Management at the Deutsche
Welle Academy in Berlin. Since 2009 he has been collab-
orating with the Granteatrino Association in Italy, special-
izing in art therapy, with his multimedia presentations.
Devoted to photography, and still using negative film, his
most enduring series is the b&w portraits Blacksmiths
of their own Fate. Series, such as Light and Form and
Nairobi – A Utopia in the Eye of the Beholder, are odes to
architecture.
Sam Hopkins
Sam Hopkins’s work responds to the specific social and
political site within which he is living; as such he can be
described as a site-specific artist. In a sense his art is
maybe more akin to documentary; probing, investigating
and re-imagining stories, characters and elements of daily
life. Rather than work with strategies of reference and
allusion, his approach is an attempt to make autonomous
works; art which can be »read« by the viewer without
them necessarily being acquainted with a specific canon of
art.
As his practice is triggered and defined by a context, the
work exhibits a broad spectrum of both media and content.
Although wary of grand narratives, much of his work does
seem to revolve around issues of public space and the
negotiation of participatory practice.
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Process is a critical component of the work, which is often
project-based and long-term. Projects such as Slum TV
and Urban Mirror, a collective of public space activists in
Nairobi of which he is an active member, have been built
up and developed over many years. However, he also
explores more immediate and lyrical responses to the city
as demonstrated in his solo work of performances, inter-
ventions, and installations. His recent work investigates the
peculiarities and aesthetics of the »development« sector
which is of powerful symbolic importance in Kenya.
Born in 1979 in Rome, he was raised in Kenya and England
before studying History and Spanish in Edinburgh and
Cuba. He proceeded to postgraduate studies in Contem-
porary Art at Oxford and Weimar, returning to Nairobi on a
permanent basis in 2006. Since then he has co-founded the
media collective Slum TV with Alexander Nikolic, and in
2008 he helped found Urban Mirror, a group of public
space activists. As well as working on these long-term
projects, he has participated in, both as artist and curator,
a broad spectrum of local and international exhibitions.
Notable amongst these are: CPHDOX, Copenhagen
Documentary Film Festival, Denmark (2008); It’s a pity we
only exist in the future, Goethe-Institut Nairobi, Kenya
(2009); Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
(2009); Sketches (solo show), Goethe-Institut Nairobi,
Kenya (2010); Mwangalio Tofauti, Nairobi Museum, Kenya
(2010); Afropolis, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne
(2010); Qui Vive II Moscow International Biennale, Moscow
(2010); Not in the Title (solo show), Iwalewa-Haus,
University of Bayreuth, Germany (2011); The Urban Culture
of Global Prayers, NGBK, Berlin.
Laura Horelli
Laura Horelli (born 1976, Helsinki) is a Berlin-based artist
working primarily in experimental documentary video. She
has participated in the Venice Biennale (2001, 2009);
Manifesta 5, San Sebastián, Spain (2004); and ARS 11,
Kiasma, Helsinki (2011). Horelli’s work has been shown in
solo exhibitions at Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck (2004);
Goethe-Institut Kenya (2010); and Galerie Barbara Weiss,
Berlin (2003, 2007, 2011). In 2011 she received the
Hannah Höch Prize for Young Artists from the City of
Berlin. Horelli was an artist-in-residence at Villa Aurora in
Los Angeles in 2007 and will spend six months at the
International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in
Brooklyn in 2013.
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Peterson Kamwathi Waweru
Peterson Kamwathi Waweru started practicing art at the
Kuona Trust art studios. His work is an attempt to
interrogate his social, economic, and cultural position. He
has for some time now been focusing on the anatomy and
psychology of queues, where the administrative and social
place of queues has tended to act as a manifestation of
humanities’ upheavals and shifts. Kamwathi is currently
researching the place, role, and meaning of processions in
contemporary ceremonies and protocols.
Kamwathi has had four solo exhibitions to date and his
work has been exhibited in Kenya, Great Britain, the USA,
Holland, Austria, El Salvador, and Finland. He participated
in the exchange program of the Fontys School of Fine and
Performing Arts, Tilburg, the Netherlands in 2003; the
Kenya Artists-in-Residence Program at the University of
Kentucky in 2005; printmaking residencies at the London
Print Studio and Bath Spa University College in 2006;
Thupelo International Artists 2006 Workshop in Rorke’s
Drift, South Africa in 2006; the Wasanii International
Artists Workshop in 2004, 2006, and 2008; and Art Omi
International Artists Residency program, New York, in
2009; the Nairobi Arts Trust’s Amnesia Conversations and
the Jet-Lag Experiment Project in 2008 and 2009; artist-
in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten
2010; Dak’Art Biennale of Contemporary African Art,
Dakar, Senegal, 2010; Sommerakademie Zentrum Paul Klee,
Bern, Switzerland, 2011; and Civitella Ranieri Fellowship,
Italy, 2012. He lives in Kiambu, Kenya.
Maasai Mbili
Maasai Mibili (in translation »Two Maasais«) is a commu-
nity based artist group that was started in 2001 by two
artists, Otieno Gomba and Otieno Kota, who initially
worked as sign writers in Kibera. Today Maasai Mbili has
eight active members (and a handful of promising
students/aspiring members closely connected to the core
group). None of the members are Maasais. The name of the
group demonstrates rather the humoristic approach the M2
group takes to its work. In 2003 M2 acquired a space, a
two story structure, originally a pub, and turned it into a
studio and a gallery, »The M2 Art Centre«. Almost all of
M2’s activities are focused on Kiberan development,
through community interaction. Maasai Mbili is an offi-
cially registered community based organization (CBO), and
as such the group has for years been a strong and indepen-
dent, active and well-known force within Kibera based
community development, its achievements have repeatedly
been acclaimed, most recently by the American ambassa-
dor, who visited the M2 Art Centre to thank them for their
peace-keeping activities during post-election violence.
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In May 2009 the group made a successful contribution to
the Donaufestival in Krems, Austria, one of Europe’s largest
culture festivals, where they built a life-size replica of a
part of the Kibera slums in Nairobi and installed a pub, a
food shop, and a gallery, where they exhibited their
paintings. Maasai Mbili is represented in the permanent
collection of Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, Naples,
Italy.
James Muriuki
James Muriuki came across photography as another tool
for practicing art when he entered university to study
design. Here, photography was introduced as a basic unit,
and in the following months he bought his first camera. He
began occasionally making experimental snapshots, when
he was able to get the negatives printed. After university
he worked for some years at RaMoMA — Rahimtulla
Museum of Modern Art in various capacities.
In 2004, he was asked by Hanne Tierney of Fivemyles
Gallery, New York, to create a body of work to be included
in the »KenyaArt« exhibitions that were being showcased
in five galleries in New York. Subsequently, James has
created numerous works that have been included in many
important and seminal exhibitions, workshops, and
projects.
A recurring subject demonstrated in many forms and
presented as Town Series, is the transition and a record of
the urban space and its many attributes. As a resident of
Nairobi this is his primary observational space, but his
practice also extends to other urban spaces. The works are
an illustration of a confluence of interdependent
happenings in an ever-changing landscape.
Architectural forms and constructions are another visual
element that is evident in his work as a metaphorical
symbol. The forms raise numerous questions concerning
society and interactions within it. Some of these works are
presented as solid forms and lines, suggesting the
sculptural.
The works have been selected for inclusion in photographic
exhibitions on Africa and won several awards, amongst
others the pan-African photography contest in the African
Film Festival of Tarifa in Spain. He is also a founder
member of 3Collect, an artist’s collective engaging in
curatorial practice.
At present, he is experimenting with motion, video and
alternative ways of using photography and combining it
with other media – ultimately exploring photography as
both a medium and a process for making art. He has
collaborated with artists from different countries on new
works during residencies and workshops as well as
independently.
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James lives and works in Nairobi, and his work has been
exhibited and is represented in collections in Kenya, South
Africa, the USA, Denmark, Spain, and Germany amongst
other countries.
Kevo Stero
Born Kevin Irungu and raised in Kibera, he dropped out of
school early, was a pickpocket and only later a visual
artist. Kevin was named »Kevo Stero« because of his local
reputation for trying to perfect foolishness. Two years later
he accidentally found himself an art studio and did what
every con artist would do, changed his name to »irosh.« He
has practiced art ever since and has now participated in
many local and international workshops, exhibitions, and
projects.
Selected exhibitions: Le rustique restaurant Nairobi (2012);
Conversations in silence, Goethe-Institut, Nairobi (2011);
Nairobi Province art exhibition, Godown Arts Centre,
Nairobi (2010); Maasai Mbili Exhibition, Talisman
restaurant, Nairobi (2010); I love Nairobi, an Urban Mirror
project on Kibera streets, t-shirts and on Nairobi commuter
trains (2010).
Studio Propolis
Established in 2005 and based in Nairobi’s industrial area,
Studio Propolis is a collaboration between Naeem Biviji
and Bethan Rayner. They bring their skills as UK trained
architects and furniture makers to run a full service design
workshop focusing on crafting imaginative, quality spaces
and furniture. Working across disciplines and scales, their
design approach seeks to reconnect the gap between
design and craft, by thinking through making. They
combine an enjoyment of studio-based work with a direct
involvement in the process of making that underpins their
design methodology.
Bethan Rayner studied architecture at the University of
Edinburgh completing her masters degree in 2003. She has
worked in architecture practices in the UK, USA, and
Mexico and has had an apprentice style education as a
furniture maker in Scotland.
Naeem Biviji studied architecture at the University of
Edinburgh completing his masters degree in 2004. He has
worked in India and has had experience as a joiner, builder,
and site manager in Kenya and Scotland.
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Works in the exhibition
Jacob Barua
Nairobi – A Utopia in the Eye of the Beholder, 2007–2012
Series of 39 photographs, text
Courtesy of the artist
Sam Hopkins I Kevo Stero
Ochuos Funeral, 2011
Slide show
11 video interviews of the reenachment of the funeral of
Ochuo on four monitors, wooden cross, coffin
Courtesy of the artists
Laura Horelli
The Terrace, 2011
HD video installation, color, sound, 24 min., loop
Courtesy of Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Laura Horelli
Terrace of European Single Person in Kileleshwa, 2011
Text and color photographs on Alu-Dibond, six parts
Courtesy of Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Maasai Mbili
Chokora Wear, 2011
Video, 10 min., clothing
Courtesy of the artists
James Muriuki
Untitled (from un-defined constructions), # 1 – 4,
2010–2011
Photographs, Plexiglas, Alu Dibond
Courtesy of the artist
Studio Propolis
Exhibition architecture
2012
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Maasai Mbili, Chokora Wear, 2011
What is Chokora Wear?
This is a contemporary fashion research project whose aim
is the creation of a clothing line designed by locals, for
locals with the assistance of artists and local fashion
designers.
Chokora Wear is involved in research as to how individual
identity, personality, and culture can be reclaimed through
fashion. Chokora is a Swahili word which can mean »to dig
into« or »things that are given to street people,« thus
lending this project its name. The research project is
divided across three areas in Kenya, namely Nairobi’s poor
Kibera slum, Diani Beach, Mombasa’s coastal area, where
inhabitants lead simple lives, and northern Kenya’s
Turkana District with its arid and harsh conditions.
The aim of the project is to create a clothing line that
participants of the project would themselves find
desirable, that creates a »look« and also sends out a
message. These ideas are to then be shared with other
people.
Concept
Clothes are a basic human need. They are distributed via a
system known as business business, business
the clothing business, and this
business is also the trend.
trend.
The public later exhibits the clothes in public spaces in
another system called fashion. fashion. This fashion then becomes
the public’s culture culture. culture Many things occur during this process,
but very few people are aware that they are involved in
the process process. process The few who do understand this, research
what the rest of us like, to create something they call
design design. design This design is created for us according to our
differing life styles. Within fashion, design creates a desire
for more.
Interviews that the project has been conducted showed,
that everyone has a new kind of modern modern fashion fashion fashion sense
mostly derived from international celebrities, who always
wear the newest fashions. This has led to people forming a
kind of »positive positive selfishness selfishness« selfishness and a desire to be more
attractive to others and more attractive than others.
This research was conducted in an attempt to demonstrate
to people that they could fulfill their own desire for
originality and their craving for whatever it is they
consider to be fashion, simply by creating their own!
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Studio Propolis
Nairobi – A State of Mind
Statement Exhibition Architecture
The architecture of the exhibition introduces spatial
relationships between the works. In occupying the gallery
space, (as opposed to only using the wall space) our
intervention begins to explore the liminal spaces that some
of the works inhabit. Moving through the exhibition one
occupies both the inside and outside of the structures and
one experiences a tension of compression and release
between the pieces.
Formally this draws reference to inhabited edges of
cities that are constantly changing. This is the architecture
of temporary structures, stage sets, hoarding around
building sites, billboards and informal shelters. The idea
of representing a city of transience suggests an anti-
monumentality that is played out in the material and
tectonic expression of the structures. There is an honesty
in which raw unfinished timber frames and panels connect
with simple lap and butt joints. These are locally available
materials which are readily used and adopt a language that
is common with such temporary architectures.
Spatially our concept played off ideas of the ephemeral|
transient, the static|dynamic and the contemporary|
historical.
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Partners and Sponsors
The Kunsthaus Bregenz would like to thank its partners
for their generous financial support and
the cultural commitment that goes along with it.
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Venue | Organizer
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Director
Yilmaz Dziewior
Chief Executive
Werner Döring
Curator
Rudolf Sagmeister
Curator of the KUB Arena
Eva Birkenstock
Communications
Birgit Albers | ext. -413
b.albers@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Press photos to download
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Art Education
Kirsten Helfrich | ext. -417
k.helfrich@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Publications | editions
Katrin Wiethege | ext. -411
k.wiethege@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Sales Editions
Caroline Schneider | ext. -444
c.schneider@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m.—6 p.m.
Thursday 10 a.m.—9 p.m.
26.10.2012, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. | 01.11.12, 10 a.m. — 9 p.m. |
08.12.12, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m. | 24. and 25.12.12 closed |
26.12.12, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m. | 31.12.12, 10 a.m. — 2 p.m. |
01.01.13, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m. | 06.01.13, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m.
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