STORYTELLERS FESTIVAL

LARGEST STORYTELLING FESTIVAL EVER SET IN KENYA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted 30 May 2018 for Business Daily)

Theatre is all about storytelling, which is why we love to go see comedies like Heartstring’s ‘Tit for tat’ which opened at Alliance Francaise last night, and love stories like Legacy Arts’ ‘Love Contract’ opening tonight at Kenya National theatre as well as ‘Constellations’ premiering in Kenya next week at Braeburn theatre.

But then, there’s a special genre of solo artists who are exclusively ‘storytellers’. These are individuals who usually are incredibly charismatic as well as being dramatic, eloquent. And if they are really good at their craft, they can be so spell-binding that they carry you, by their spinning intricate webs of words mixed with loquacious body language, into other worlds.

If you don’t believe me, just head to Dream Kona inside Uhuru Gardens tomorrow, 2^nd June, from 10am when Zamaleo Arts presents the Sigana International Storytelling Festival. It’s the largest such festival ever presented in Kenya. Featuring storytellers from Tanzania and Uganda as well as from Kenya, South Africa and India, performances already began earlier this week. What’s more, theirs is a traveling festival that will be staged in venues around Nairobi and Kiambu as well as in Tala, Kisii and Siaya County.

The grand opening of the festival was last Tuesday at the Buru Buru branch of the Kenya National Library. It was a perfect location since this relatively new library (opened in 2010) has a large performance space upstairs. There was even plenty of room for the multitude of Nairobi school children who came by the bus-load and quickly were charmed by Alumbe Helen into doing a slew of ‘warm-up’ exercises and having heaps of fun in the process.

But don’t imagine this storytelling fest is only for children. All the performing artists (for that is what storytellers are) have a vast repertoire of stories to share, one for every occasion. Last Tuesday in the Library, the occasion called for tales that could charm children by sharing stories that also taught moral lessons. But all the artists are trained to be adaptable according to their audience, which on Tuesday was children. But then yesterday, when the festival went to the ‘artists’ colony’ at Karen Village, performances were oriented more toward appealing to adults and fellow artists.

By Tuesday, not all the storytellers had arrived. But that didn’t stop the show going on. After Alumbe’s ‘warm up’ and getting all the children (none of whom were above eight years old, I believe) actively engaged in the process of communicating with their whole bodies and minds, the show officially started.

With drummers Joseph Manzi, Saul Muthoka and John Namai setting the rhythm and providing all the essential sound-effects to each professional storyteller’s African tale, the first up was Baeletsi Tsatsi, from Johannesburg. Her fellow South Africans Bongiswa and Sizwe were still on their way, but no matter. Baeletsi shared a marvelous story about The Sky Maiden and the Frog and got children chiming in when this Market Theatre-trained actress signaled that they do so.

She was followed by Christa Komba from Tanzania who’d devised an original Swahili tale that the army of school children clearly enjoyed. Both she and Baeletsi have a penchant for ‘applied theatre’ which is how they got into storytelling. Meanwhile, Christa also teaches at the Bagamoyo Institute of Dramatic Arts.

On Saturday, the Festival will move over to Dream Kona where all the storytellers will perform according to the theme recommended by the creators of the new performing and visual arts space, TICAH (Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health).

“We will be celebrating World Environment Day two days early,” says Alumbe who adds that at least 75 percent of the storytelling will be related to protecting and preserving Mother Earth. They may also explore the issue of waste management, particularly related to plastics which have become so detrimental to life on both land and sea.

Sigana Storytellers Alumbe and John Mukeni have also shared the stage with their late-arriving artists, including Patricia Xoey from Uganda, Sherin Matthews and Seema both from India, and Bongiswa and Sizwe from South Africa.

The Festival will run through 9^th June. For bookings, schools and individuals can still email at info@zamaleoact.org or call 0722739894.

Meanwhile, at Kenya National Theatre for two days only, the original script by Jean Akinyi, ‘Contract Love’ will be staged, directed by Dr Zippy Okoth. It stars Suki Wanza, Papi Odeq, Sue Makena and Vitalis Wesh. Described as an ‘African love fantasy’ the show combines music, dance and drama and should provide a sumptuous theatrical experience.

SILVIA & PHILIP AS PHYSICIST & BEEKEEPER IN 'CONSTELLATIONS'

QUARKS AND COSMIC LOVE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 30 May 2018 for Business Daily)

It might be difficult to imagine a romance, leave alone a love affair, between a theoretical physicist and a beekeeper. Particularly when the physicist is a university academic and a woman who specializes in ‘theoretical early universe cosmology’. That’s a field that fellows like the late Professor Stephen Hawkings and many others popularized. It’s also been a playground for writers to explore in everything from comic books and video games to TV series like ‘Buffy and the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Doctor Who’, and films like the ‘Star Trek’ franchise.

Yet apparently, it wasn’t simply science fiction that inspired the British playwright Nick Payne to write a play about such an improbable relationship. “It was a BBC documentary on the multiverse that inspired him to sit down and write ‘Constellations’,” says Silvia Cassini who’s performing Payne’s popular play next week at Braeburn Theatre for two nights only, 7^th and 8^th June.  

Silvia is better known for being a playwright herself, the author and director of ‘A Man like You’ which has been well received in New York and Hong Kong as well as here and in Harare where she first saw ‘Constellations’ performed. “And it’s stuck with me ever since,” she tells Business Daily between rehearsing scenes of the show with her co-star Philip Coulson and with their director, John Sibi Okumu.

Philip is also better known for being something other than an actor, namely a lawyer (and occasional auctioneer).  Yet some of us see lawyers as performers whose role is convincing juries and judges of their client’s innocence.

In any case, Silvia’s the theoretical physicist concerned with cosmology while Philip plays the beekeeper. They meet at an ordinary bar-b-que and quickly strike up a conversation that leads them literally into ‘multiverses’, apparently in and out of this world and into what can only be described as ‘parallel universes’.

The shifts between time and space and an infinite array of other dimensions transpires in the course of just over an hour, 70 minutes. But in that brief span of time, the two explore everything from bees to black holes, pollinators and parallel universes, bees wax and relativity.

But one will have to see the show to find out if decisions made by these two will land them in realms that mutually resonant (like the sub-atomic particles in String theory) or whether their ‘close encounter’ is like a comet passing in the starry night.

KIBERA ARTISTS AT THE STANLEY & IN KAREN

EASTLANDS ARTISTS HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE ART SCENE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 28 May 2018 for Business Daily)

For the longest time, Kibera has been held up as the poster child for poverty in Kenya. Known for being the biggest slum in the country, its shabby mabati rooftops were immortalized when the French street artist JR painted giant faces across a sea of shiny slum shanties best seen from the sky.

Yet just as the Nairobi visual arts world is changing fast, as young up-and-coming artists are swiftly streaming into the local art scene, so Kibera hasn’t been left behind.

On the contrary, Kibera and other so-called slums, like Korogocho, Mukuru and Kayole are now being seen as spawning grounds where new talents are being nurtured and gradually known.

The best evidence of this is at Polka Dot Gallery where artists from the Maasai Mbili (M2) collective are currently exhibiting their works. M2 artists are all based in Kibera, yet their art is sought after in Karen as PDG’s founder Lara Ray is gaining a reputation for not only showing established artists like Yony Waite (co-founder of the defunct Gallery Watatu) but also opening her space to younger artists like those at M2 and Brush tu Art Studio who are base in Eastlands.

What’s more, a whole new crop of Kibera artists are on exhibition at another up-market venue. The Sarova Stanley is presently hosting a two-week Art Festival, curated by Lisa Christopherson and featuring an eclectic assortment of painters and sculptors.

The most surprising are the three young exhibiting artists from the new Kibera Art Centre. Alpha Odhiambo, Chesta Nyamosi and Baraka Joseph represent an even younger generation of gifted young artists from Kibera, aged 18 through 20. Lisa met them through the Kibera Town Centre (where the art centre resides) which was started eight years ago by a fellow Dane, the Hollywood actress Connie Nielsen.

According to Ted Nyaima, the art centre director, Connie came to Kenya to make a movie, a few scenes of which were filmed in Kibera. “She fell in love with the place and decided to start a project focused on assisting the Kibera community,” says Ted. “That is how the Kibera Town Centre [including the art centre] was built,” he adds, proudly noting Ms Nielsen not only played the dynamite mom of ‘Wonder Woman’ in the DC comic-based film. She got her big break in Hollywood playing the Queen opposite Russel Crowe in ‘The Gladiator’.

The Kibera trio were easily among the best-selling artists on the Festival’s opening night. That’s largely because their black and white drawings had been made into affordable prints in contrast to some of the other works on show, by well-established artists like David Marrian, Mary Collis, Anthony Russell, John Silver, Alexandra Spyratos, Chris Dei, Johnney Dwek and Fawaz Elsaid.

The price differential is easily explained. First, the difference between a print and a painting is the difference in originality which is obviously more highly valued. Plus, all the other artists exhibiting at Sarova Stanley have earned names for themselves after years of study, practice and exhibiting both in Kenya and overseas.

The Stanley’s first ‘Art Festival’ has been on for a full week and will close later today, 1^st June.

Meanwhile, this past week a number of exhibition opened around town. At Circle Art Gallery, Sidney Mang’ong’o’s ‘Imagined Structures’ are on display through 9 June. Sidney is another artist inspired by the Kibera artists of Maasai Mbili.

Last Saturday, at One Off Gallery, an exhibition of paintings by Timothy Brooke entitled ‘Earth and Sky’ opened and will be on until 26 June. It’s a show art lovers won’t want to miss.

And following the successful showcasing of six Ugandan artists last month at Village Market, last week saw another seven Ugandan painters present their works at the Exhibition Hall. The colorful works of Anwar, Kalule, Mukiibi, Ogwang, Sebandeke and Tindi will on display the same place through 4 June.

One of the six Ugandans who exhibited last month, Jude Kasagga is also having a show at Photizo Gallery in Valley Arcade with Kenyatta University lecturer Anne Mwiti. As for solo shows, David Thuku’s Barcode is still running at Red Hill Gallery while Moses Nyawanda’s show just closed yesterday at the UN.

Finally tomorrow, Beta-Arts is hosting a one-day Pop-Up Art Exhibition in Muthaiga Heights while the Ngecha Art Centre is having a revival opening the same day featuring works by Sebastian Kiarie, Wanyu Brush, Chain Muhandi and King Dodge Kangoroti among others. And at Dream Kona in Uhuru Garden, Kenyan artists will be painting and performing all day.

HORTICULTURE SOCIETY'S FLOWER AND PLANT SHOW WAS BEAUTIFUL

                                                  George Barua won a Gold at the Plant and Flower Show 2018

            Mother Nature at her beautiful best

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (appeared in Business Daily 1 June 2018)

We hear so many sad stories about how much damage human beings have done to nature and Mother Earth. Yet one way people could have gained a bit of hope in Mother Nature’s restorative powers was to attend the Kenya Horticultural Society’s

120^th Flower and Plant Show at the SSDS Temple in Westlands over the last weekend in May.

The show was organized by KHS’s Nairobi District branch (there are eight branches country-wide) and it only ran for two days, last Saturday and Sunday. But the combination of floral and plant exhibitions, [designed by both amateurs and professionals gardeners] as well as plant-related sales tables literally filled the huge SSDS exhibition hall.

The sales items, including everything from organic fertilizer and orchids to garden furniture and wide variety of potted plants, were all wisely located at the back of the hall. Wise because once someone had a look at all the award-winning displays of nature’s most elegant organic creations, he or she would most likely want to go home and get to work on beautifying their own garden.  Or at least find ground where they could start planting their own seeds, cuttings and bulbs just to have a small slice of the same beauty that the 30 odd show exhibitors had nurtured into looking so healthy, happy and colorful.

‘There were only two gold awards given this year,’ says show chairperson Balinder Ahluwalia, clearly impressed with the high standards of excellence and beauty that all nine judges had shown last Friday morning as they chose the award winners in a wide array of categories .

“One went to the Kenya Orchid Society for its ‘Balcony Garden’ display,” says the show Chairlady, noting that her own district’s display in the same category came in second with a Silver and the Thika district entry won a Bronze.

“The other Gold went to George Barua for his ‘Container-Grown Plants. The judges said his plants were literally ‘flawless’,” says Mrs Ahluwalia who’s in training to one day become a Judge herself.

“You have to take a [written] exam,” says Asif Chaudhry, one of the judges and the owner of the JK Forests in Parklands. “It takes knowing lots of the names of plants, as well as knowing to which species and genus they belong,”

But no matter how healthy, ‘flawless’, delicate and colorful someone’s plant may be, there are still fine points that the judges consider which a gardener might overlook. For instance, Nannette Sole’s displays were all about succulents and she won first and second prizes in the ‘amateur’ category. (Celia Hardy won the first prize for her succulents but in the ‘professionals’ class.)

                                                    Celia Hardy with her succelents on sale via Plants Galore at the Show

“I came in second for my ‘fountain’ [of succulents] because I hadn’t read the fine print that said only one container per entry. I technically had two since I’d cemented my bird feeder to my planter to create the fountain effect,” says Nannette who had created a lovely double decker effect and with no less than 40 succulents beautifully arranged in her ‘fountain.

Ironically, her other entry in the same category, featuring 24 echeveria (succulents) actually win the first prize. It was less dramatic than the fountain. But the way she’d arranged her echeveria plants looked like a three dimensional painting. Of her award-winning display, she says she’d carefully considered the placement, size, height and color of every plant. She says the process was “like painting a picture,” producing what was almost like an abstract expressionist painting.

There were many other categories of award winners in the show: everything from herbs, fruits and vegetables to climbing plants and cut flowering trees and shrubs. There were children’s prizes; and awards were also given to representatives of the Kenya Floral Arrangement Club like Geeta Shah who was highly commended for arranging of a cut flowering fuchsia.

    Geeta Shah's Flower Arrangement won an Honorable Mention at the Plant & Flower Show 2018

But as lovely as this year’s Plant and Flower Show was, many participants complained that the rains, and especially the sleet that came down in the last three months had done immense damage to their delicate plants. A number of KHS members who normally exhibit annually absented themselves this year because so much of their acreage had been destroyed, they wouldn’t have had their best plants to show this year.

  Chairperson of the Kenya Horticultural Society Plant & Flower Show, Balender Ahluwalia shortly before the show began.

Nonetheless, the most intrepid gardeners, be they professional or amateur, tried by all means to protect their flowers from inclement weather. It’s a real credit that this year’s award-winning gardeners managed, in spite of the rains, to still produce and present exceptional examples of Nature in her beautiful best.

STORYTELLERS AND A NEW SAMBURU MUSEUM OPENED AT ISK

NEW SAMBURU MUSEUM OPENS AT ISK

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (23 May 2018)

Apart from Aroji Theatre Academy’s staging of Dr Fred Mbogo’s thriller, ‘Thieves as Humans’, this weekend at the Kenya Cultural Centre Annex, most thespians and storytellers are in the thick of rehearsals, getting set for shows opening in the coming days.

That’s not to say we haven’t seen drama this past week. On Wednesday at the International School of Kenya (ISK), a brand new museum was launched inside the school’s spacious library.

In opening the Rhodia Mann Museum of Samburu Culture, the school has not only opened up the opportunity for its students to learn about many facets of the Samburu people. It has also availed Ms Mann the chance to share her lifetime involvement with the people of northern Kenya.

Speaking at the launch, Rhodia told a library-full of friends how she’d been born and brought up in Kenya, and how she’d traveled all around Samburu-land with her father by the time she was just nine. By age 16, she was already dreaming about how she was destined to lead a life intertwined with the Samburu.

And now, after many years of traveling up north and getting to know the Samburu people, their cultural practices and even their cosmology, she sees the museum as something like ‘a dream come true’.

Some of the knowledge she’s garnered over the years is recorded in books she’s written like ‘Talk to the Stars: the Samburu of Northern Kenya’, ‘A Woman of Two Worlds: How (not) to become an anthropologist’, and ‘Ice Cream in Sololo: Journey to the Heart of Life’ as well as in the film ‘Butterfly People’ which she will screen later this year.

But opening the well-captioned Museum has meant Rhodia has also been able to share the various artifacts and insights collected over the years. Having been adopted by one Samburu mama, she was able to penetrate the more metaphysical dimensions of the culture, which are recorded well in ‘Talk to the Stars’. Her work has even earned her recognition from the Royal Geographical Society in the UK.  

The new museum came into being with support from the Rotary Club of Muthaiga and the Interact Club of ISK. It has become a permanent display at ISK.

Meanwhile, there will be a stream of new productions being staged starting this weekend. ‘Thieves as Humans’ will premiere at KCC Annex, starring Bilal Mwaura and Jack Gitonga this Saturday and Sunday. It’s a gritty thriller that Fred Mbogo has wanted to see produced for quite some time.

Then on Tuesday, 29 May, the Sigana International Storytelling Festival opens at the Buru Buru branch of the Kenya National Library Service at 10am. This year’s festival will feature master storytellers from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as well as from South Africa and India. They are being hosted by the Sigana Storytellers who are part of the Zamaleo Act Team, headed by the Team’s founder, Aghan Odero.

Catering first and foremost to children from Kenyan schools, the storytelling will take place all over the country between 29 May and 9 June. After starting off in Nairobi, all the performers will tell their stories, first in Kajiado, then in Karen Village, Alliance Girls School, Dream Corner at Uhuru Gardens, Tala, Kisii , and ending up in Siaya.

Then this weekend, from Friday night, 1^st June through Saturday, the Legacy Arts Film Lab will present the new musical scripted by Jean Akinyi called ‘Contract Love’ at Kenya National Theatre.

Directed by Dr Zippy Okoth, the show is billed as an ‘African love fantasy’ that fuses drama, music and dance. The cast includes Suki Wanza, Papi Odeq, Makena Sue and Vitalis Wesh.

That same weekend, starting Thursday through Sunday, Heartstrings Kenya will put up the comedy ‘Tit for Tat’ at Alliance Francaise. The same play was staged just last year. In fact, it might have been the last production Festival of Creative Arts did before they went silent and FCA actors scattered all over town, quite a few joining Mbeki Mwalimu’s Back to Basic.

The other production opening next weekend at Braeburn Theatre will be a two-hander entitled ‘Constellations’ by Nick Payne. It’s starring Philip Coulson and Silvia Cassini who is fresh from producing and directing ‘A Man Like You’ less than a month ago. Constellations is a quirky love story that unfolds between a beekeeper and an academic. It’s one that leads into parallel universes and other uncharted territory. It makes its Kenyan debut a week from tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLANTS AND FLOWERS HAVE FEELINGS TOO!

PLANTS AND FLOWERS GALORE AT THE LOWER KABETE TEMPLE

By margaretta wa gacheru

Judging of the 120^th Flower and Plant Show, organized by the Nairobi district of the Kenya Horticultural Society (KHS) is taking place today at the SSDS Temple on Lower Kabete Road. That’s so everything will be ready for the opening of the Show tomorrow morning at 10am sharp and run through Sunday at 2pm.

“The judges are all award-winning gardeners who have years of experience judging flower and plant shows,” says Mrs Balinder Ahluwalia, chairperson of KHS/Nairobi and organizer of this year’s show.

“There are nine judges and one pre-show judge who helps ensure the participants don’t get disqualified over small infraction of the rules,” she adds as she shows me the booklet containing detailed rules and lists of cups, prizes and special awards that KHS gardeners take quite seriously.

In fact, Mrs Ahluwalia is an avid gardener in her own right and one who’s participated in KHS shows for the last twelve years.

“In the past, I’ve entered my flowers and plants in many more categories than this year. It’s because I’ve been so involved in getting other gardeners to exhibit in this year’s show,” she says as she escorts me around her home garden just days before the show opens.

The rains have been rough on many gardens in the city, especially those like hers which specializes in flowering plants. “The rain is good for growing plants, of course. But it’s hard on my flowers,” she says almost apologetically.

Normally, she claims her garden is more colorful. But as I gaze out over her backyard garden and the rainbow array of potted- and hanging-plants that occupy nearly every spare space on the other three sides of her town house, I can hardly imagine her place looking more colorful.

“My children laugh at the way I fill up pots with plants every chance I get,” she says, noting that her pots come in all sizes and materials, from terra cotta and cement to plastic.

But perhaps even more impressive than the number of potted plants she has is the way she remembers all their names

One of her most impressive flowers is the ‘Heliconia’ which is a hanging red and yellow flower that she plans to display at the show. I can’t begin to name all the plants and flowers that she reeled off as we walked around. A lot of them were exotic, like the ‘Holmoskiodia’ which also has a red flower shaped like its nickname, the Chinese man cap.

But Mrs Ahluwalia also likes the local indigenous plants since she says they are the ones that attract the bubble bees and the birds. Like clockwork, she says the birds come around at 4 in the afternoon. So if she’s sitting on her veranda, looking out on the backyard, she can watch the bees go for the African daisies as well as the Euphorbia, Salvia, Abutilon and even the Russelia which is mainly frequented by birds with long beaks since they’re the only ones that can reach the choicest pollen from inside the Russelia’s blossom.

The plants I remember best are ones known for their nicknames, like the lobster claw, torch lily, lollipop plant and air plant (also known as Tillandsia). She also has Hibiscus in her garden, which come in handy since someone recently gave her a four-year-old tortoise which loves to eat Hibiscus petals.

Mrs Ahluwalia doesn’t only have flowers in her garden. She also has trees and black stem bambusa, succulents like aloes, herbs like Rosemary, Indian basil, assorted mints and even Vanilla vines. Nonetheless, she’s a specialist in ornamental flowers since she’s seriously love their natural beauty.

“Plants have feelings too. And if you nourish them with love, they feel it and then they thrive,” she says. However, she adds there are other steps that must be taken to ensure your plants are healthy.

For instance, she fertilizes her plants and flowers regularly with a combination of organic compost and animal manure. Plus she doesn’t use any chemicals (not even pesticides) on her plants.

“You don’t need pesticides if you keep your plants and your soils healthy because then they’ll be strong enough to resist any intrusive pest,” she explains.

During the plant and flower show, there will be exhibitions and awards for everything from orchids and bromeliads to climbing plants and succulents, fruits, vegetables and culinary herbs. There will even be displays dedicated to balcony gardens, which is one of the few events Mrs Ahluwalia will participate in.

HILARY NG'WENO GAVE ME MY CAREER

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 22 May 2018)

Often,  when I feel overwhelmed with an overload of stories to write, I think of Hilary Ng’weno who was my second editor-in-chief from the time I first came to Kenya as a Rotary Foundation fellow back in the 1970s. The first editor was the late Odhiambo Okite, a wonderful man who advised me to apply for a job writing about Arts and Entertainment for Stellascope, Hilary’s company. It was a job he said hadn’t been advertised as yet.

Okite knew I loved writing about the arts since I’d been hired to write and edit stories about women for the NCCK publication ‘Target’. But often I’d write theatre reviews for the paper since I was still doing a master’s degree in literature at University of Nairobi and I’d been a member of John Ruganda’s Free Traveling Theatre two years before.

Well, I went for that interview and was humbled to meet this man who not only founded the most influential political magazine in Kenya at the time, Weekly Review. Hilary had also been Kenya’s first indigenous African editor of The Daily Nation. As it turned out, I got the job and The Nairobi Times was officially launched in November 1977.

One of the first things my new workmates advised me was to keep my distance from Hilary. Otherwise, I could easily ‘get the sack’ since his managing editor, Sarah Elderkin didn’t want any woman spending too much time with Hilary. If she saw a staff member female take ‘too long’ in his office, that woman wasn’t likely to last long on the job.

It was a warning I took seriously, especially after having one run-in early on with Sarah. So I spoke to Hilary very rarely. But on one occasion, (the one I recall when I feel overloaded with stories to write) Hilary saw that I was a bit slow going on a story he was waiting for. He paused a moment, then said (to paraphrase) he could hardly sympathize since he easily writes three or four stories at a go and doesn’t even feel a sweat. Those were not exactly his words, but the quantity and quality of writing he could pound out of his typewriter (in those pre-computer days) in a flash was beyond impressive. It was unfathomable genius.

I’d already known that Hilary (like my brother Steve) had gone to Harvard and studied nuclear physics (or some other esoteric brand of that science). He’d come home, but as there weren’t jobs back then for nuclear physicists, he picked journalism as an alternative. And that is how he came to be the Nation’s first African editor in 1965.

What was most thrilling about working for Hilary was being on the ground floor with his team as he launched The Nairobi Times. I believe he envisaged it being a Kenyan cross between New York Times, Washington Post and the London Observer.

Nairobi Times ran from late 1977 until 1983 when we were bought by Daniel arap Moi and became The Kenya Times. My own feeling is that our paper, NT, was ahead of its time, just as was Hilary. The other problem I suspect was that Hilary was more of a media man and intellectual than a savvy businessman who was shrewd about making and managing money. He had a wonderful vision for Nairobi Times: he wanted no petty crime stories or juicy gossip in the paper. That implicitly meant the vast majority of newspaper-reading Kenyans wouldn’t buy the paper. The other problem related to advertising. At the outset, Hilary insisted that Nairobi Times was for an ‘elite’ readership. It was a marketing trope that appealed to corporate elites and diplomats, but apparently had less relevance to ordinary Kenyans.

 Years later I learned the real problem with Nairobi Times had been the advertising agencies which were not forthcoming about giving Hilary ads. Apparently, a black African’s presence in the mainstream media was not welcome, so there was a concerted effort to ensure he couldn’t obtain the ads required to keep the paper afloat.

Whatever the story, what I know is that it was tragic when we (the NT staff) were shipped off to State House to ‘pay homage’ to our new boss, President Daniel arap Moi.

I had been so humbled and am still so proud to have worked for Hilary that I refused to stick with Kenya Times (also known as ‘Kenya Sometimes’) for long. And although I did as I’d been advised and never got too close to Hilary, I will forever be deeply grateful for what I gained from working with him.

First of all was the professionalism that he always conveyed as a first class journalist. Second was the farsighted freedom of thought that he displayed up until the time he had to compromise when he had to sell Nairobi Times.

Occasionally, I would write book reviews or arts stories for Weekly Review, the publication that put Hilary on the map not just in Kenya but internationally. I was once told the US State Department even ran a course to study the writings and analyses by Hilary in Weekly Review.

The one caution Hilary gave me early on in my work at Nairobi Times and Weekly Review was be careful about the way I analyzed the arts. I had just studied for three years with Ngugi wa Thiong’o at University of Nairobi and much of Ngugi’s Leftist perspective had rubbed off on me. But Hilary forewarned that if I continued writing along that line, I would either get myself deported or fired!

I took his message seriously, and so today, I continue to write about ‘soft news’ which is how the arts are normally viewed. For better or worse, I still write without rocking too many people’s boats, apart from the artists. But to tell the truth, I owe my career in journalism to Hilary. Thank you, sir, for hiring me back in August, 1977.

CYRUS GOES TO WASHINGTON

CYRUS GIVES A KEYNOTE AT SMITHSONIAN’S AFRICAN ART MUSEUM

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 22 May 2018 for Business Daily)

It isn’t every day that a Kenyan artist is invited to be keynote speaker at a forum hosted by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. And not just to speak about “Re-visioning Africa through the Creative Lens of Cyrus Kabiru,” as his talk was entitled. 

                                  Cyrus in the room given him at Zeitz MOCAA Museum of Contemporary African Art

Cyrus was also invited to run an afternoon workshop at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art on the same topic last Saturday, 19^th May.  

Cyrus has kept well out of the limelight in Kenya, despite his ‘C-Stunner’ sculptures gaining worldwide acclaim. Indeed, Kenyans are hardly aware that his hand-wrought wire specs (which one writer described as “surreal and phantasmagorical creations”) have been on the cover of numerous arts and fashion magazines. He’s also been invited to exhibit, speak and participate in workshops all the way from Los Angeles and London to Milan, Tilburg, Holland and Cape Town to name a few of the myriad cities his art has taken him to.

                                Cyrus atop his new house on the edge of Nairobi and Machakos counties 

Most Kenyans probably don’t know that for years, Cyrus had been creating his so-called ‘junk art’ at Kuona Trust (now Kuona Artists Collective). Creating crocodiles and other creatures out of soda and beer bottle tops that he’d collected from local bars, Cyrus had started working with the only ‘art materials’ accessible to him (namely junk) many years MAC discover that the wiry specks were major hits among visitors who passed by Kuona Trust.

Much has changed since then. Still, it must be humbling for a man who frankly came from a humble roots himself, growing up in Korogocho (the site of one of Nairobi’s largest garbage dumps), to explicitly have his ‘futuristic C-stunners’ be described as an inspiration for others to come appreciate and even emulate.

                           Cyrus with the founder of Zeitz MOCAA, Dr. Jocham Zeitz and an art collector

But Cyrus hasn’t only been a hit in Europe and the States. He is also represented in South Africa, both at the SMAC Gallery in Cape Town and in the permanent collection of the largest contemporary African art institution in the world, the Zeitz MOCAA (Museum of Contemporary African Art) also in Cape Town. Only one of two Kenyans to be included in the Museum’s permanent showcase of African art, (Wangechi Mutu is the other one), Cyrus has just one problem these days. And that is finding sufficient time to come home and create more wonderful C-Stunners. He’s a man in public demand.                    

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DINESH ON DISPLAY AT NAIROBI'S HOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL

DINESH’S SOLO SHOW AT THE INTERCONTINENTAL

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 21 May 2018 for Saturday Nation)

Kenyan artists are ever exploring the local terrain for new spaces to display their art.

There’s prestige for an artist to exhibit their work in established galleries and art centers. But if you’re not near the top of gallerists’ lists of painters or sculptors to be put on display, then life can be tough trying to get your artwork into the public eye.

That’s why Dinesh Revankar is glad to have met the new Hotel InterContinental Regional Manager Oliver Geyer. He’s the main man in charge of all aspects of the Hotel’s Nairobi operations, including the décor and what hangs on the walls.

Dinesh had already been selling his work in the African Heritage Gift Shop inside the Hotel. But once he realized that Mr Geyer had been the person responsible for Ruth Nyakundi’s exhibiting her art all around the lobby area of the ‘Intercon’, he introduced himself to the Regional Manager and asked if he could do the same once Ruth’s show had closed. And that is how it happened that Dinesh now has what amounts to a major solo exhibition at one of the leading five-star hotels in town.

Fortunately, the artist paints in a wide variety of styles, so that one can walk from one end of the Hotel to the other and see a rich assortment of artistry. There’s everything from wildlife and Kenyan landscapes to abstract art and iconic Kenyan imagery such as the Migration in the Maasai Mara, traditional Turkana dancers and Savannah sunset. As such, the passerby might not even realize that all the art is by one person, except Dinesh has carefully labeled all his works including prices and his personal contacts.

Such comprehensive labelling is not normally displayed in gallery shows, but the Hotel is not a gallery, according to Mr Geyer.

In fact, it is not even company policy to regularly hang local artists’ works in Intercontinental Hotels. But as every regional manager is in charge of his hotel, Mr Geyer sees part of his social responsibility to his guests to introduce them to a bit of Kenyan culture and art. At the same time, his policy is also not charge the artist anything like a commission for his or her sales, which is why Dinesh includes his email and phone number on all his labels.

The practice of putting local artists’ works up on his hotel’s wall actually began for the German-born manager when he was based in Muscat, Oman. “It was in Oman that I met an American independent gallerist who was especially concerned about promoting Omani women artists. I liked the idea and began doing the same through exhibiting their work in the hotel,” he told Saturday Nation.

That is also why, when he came to Kenya, he wanted to continue the practice of exhibiting works of local women artists. “But as I didn’t know how to find them, I began looking through the hotel’s storage and I found work by Ruth,” he says.

“I contacted her and invited her to bring her paintings. We had them up in the hotel for almost one year,” he adds.

Two of Ruth’s large paintings remained behind at the InterContinental in the reception areas. Meanwhile, the rest of the wall space on the ground floor is filled with Dinesh’s art.

It’s also in the Business Centre as well as in main dining room known as The Terrace, the Executive Lounge upstairs, and even in the Presidential Suite.

Personally, his lion in the Executive Lounge is my favorite. But then, the Presidential Suite was occupied on the day I came to see what Dinesh considers to be his finest pieces, so I’ll reserve final judgment.

Dinesh is a native of Mumbai and came to Kenya in the mid-1980s. He has worked as a graphic designer, illustrator and fine artist who often gets calls from guests in the hotel who like a particular painting but feel it’s either too big or too small for their needs. So he’s become something of a customizer, meaning an artist who agrees to duplicate his art to accommodate his new client’s need. “It’s no trouble for me and I’m happy to complete the sale,” he adds.

CAMILLE WEKESA'S ONE-WOMAN EXHIBITION OPENS IN LONDON 5th JUNE

PAINTERLY TWIN PEAKS AT TURKANA & TSAVO

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (composed 11 May 2018)

                                                                                           Jade Lake by camille wekesa

Whenever I hear Camille Wekesa’s having an exhibition, I have to be the first in line to see what this extraordinary Kenyan artist has conjured up out of her most fertile imagination.

It hasn’t mattered if she was the artist exhibiting or if it was a show she was curating, something I have seen her do several times in the past few years. One time, it was at the CFC Stanbic Bank where she’d assembled an awesome array of original portraits by Kenyan artists. She’d been inspired when visiting the Bank’s home base in UK and found it had a massive portraiture collection which it had been growing for many years. I never found out if any of the paintings in her show became part of the bank’s ‘mother’ collection. But in a sense it didn’t matter since a myriad of local art lovers appreciated Camille’s ambitious initiative.

The other show that she curated was destined to be exhibited in London (just like the one she’s about to have in early June). That exhibition was a two-hander in which she shared the ‘billing’ with one of Kenya’s leading pioneer painters, Ancent Soi. Camille’s and Ancent’s paintings were previewed at the Russian Embassy for a week in 2012 before they were shipped off to UK where the two artists had a successful show at the Deborah Gage Gallery of Art on Bond Street.

It wasn’t long thereafter that Camille moved up to Nanyuki where she’s been painting practically nonstop ever since. Between then and now, she had one elegant one-woman exhibition at Red Hill Art Gallery. She’s also been creating massive murals up at the Lewa Conservancy in Laikipia.

But Camille has also taken some time to visit some of the most scenic spots in this country, two of which are being exquisitely featured in the show she’s about to have in UK from early June.

‘Jade & Silver’ is the name Camille has given to the body of works she’s painted over the last year() and which reflect her awe-inspired experiences while visiting Lake Turkana and Tsavo Game Park.

“Lake Turkana is also known as the Jade Lake, and as I was so spellbound when I first saw the lake, I wanted to keep the name in the title of this show,” says Camille whose landscape portraits of that part of the world are just as primordial, pristine and powerful as I remember that region to be when I first went there some time ago. She captures the majesty of those craggy mountains, a terrain that also feels as if it might have once been an abode or maybe just a resting place for spirits or extraterrestrial gods.

Out of the 30 odd paintings in her Jade & Silver show, only five or six reveal Camille’s humble fascination and almost reverential feeling for that ‘in the beginning’ effect of Turkana. The rest reveal another kind of awe that she experienced, this time when she visited Tsavo Park.

Tsavo’s a place she’s been to many times before, but when she went late last year??, the land was dry, the trees were plentiful but barren of leaves. And the day she visited, her vision of the landscape resulted in her creating a whole series of singularly delicate and dazzling trees whose branches are intricately interlaced in shimmering silvery mesh.

“Each tree took many days to complete,” says Camille whose painstaking labor painting countless filigreed lines, curves and intersecting branches is a marvel beyond imagining (almost).

Another Kenyan artist, Mary Collis, was on hand for Camille’s Nairobi preview of Jade & Silver and suggested that her tree paintings were so precious it would be a pity if they weren’t kept intact, that is, if one individual, art institution or museum couldn’t buy them all at once. But she’d painted over 20 trees, that might not be practical for one individual although a museum could probably be able to.

Mary, I and others had been privileged to be at Camille’s one-day preview of Jade & Silver which she’s curated and hung at the Muthaiga Country Club. The Saturday before she’d also had a one-day preview exhibition not so much to generate sales, but as to get public feedback, which was wholly affirmative and utterly in awe of what she’d achieved. For especially with the Turkana paintings, Camille captured a super-realist verging on a surrealist feeling of that timeless region can conjure in one’s mind.  

MAASAI MBILI BRING THEIR ART TO KAREN AND POLKA DOT

                                                              Kevo Stero with some of his art at Polka Dot Gallery

KIBERA-BASED ARTISTS SHOW THEIR ART IN KAREN

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted May 21, 2018)

Maasai Mbili is one of the first Kenyan artist collectives to get organized in Nairobi. There were some that preceded it, like the Ngecha Artists Association which was launched in 1995, several members of whom will be in Ngecha Art Centre’s upcoming exhibition opening 2^nd June. There was also the Banana Hill Artists Studio which preceded the BHA Gallery by more than a decade, having first assembled in 1992.

                                                                          Vincent Masinde's art at Polka Dot Gallery

But Maasai Mbili is a 21^st century phenomenon. It’s a collective that began with two young sign writers, Gombo Otieno and Kota Otieno, who were living in Kibera and shrewdly dressing up as Maasai as a masterful marketing device to attract more business. Nobody could ignore the imagination and humor that went into two young men from Western Kenya dressing up like Morans in bright Maasai shukas and parading around Nairobi’s most notorious slum, armed not with spears but with paint brushes attached to long spear-like sticks.

The two Otieno’s (no immediate family ties) quickly became known as Maasai Mbili (abbreviated as M2), and even more quickly attracted other aspiring artists who wanted to associate with them. It didn’t happen overnight, and M2 has seen many artists come and go, including the late Ashif (aka George) Malamba.

But there’s a core of M2 artists who’s stuck with the group for years. They include Gomba Otieno, Mbuthia Maina, Kevo Stero, J.K. Rabala, Charles Chakara and Ashif (who remains a member of the group in spirit). Meanwhile, there are six more recent members of M2 who are altogether part of the first group exhibition, entitled ‘Wachembe’ that M2 has had at Polka Dot Gallery in Karen.

                          Painted Print by Mbuthia Maina who also cocurated the Polka Dot show with Rose Jepkorir

The seven ‘newcomers’ (relatively speaking) are Anitah Kivochy, Brian Odhiambo, James Dundi, Janet Akinyi, Joakim Kwaru, Ronald Ronex and Vincent Masinde. But whether new or old, the beauty of M2 is the collective’s acceptance of artists who share the same vision and commitment that Gomba has frequently shared with me. It is that they have no desire to ‘escape’ Kibera or so-called slum life. They’d rather thrive on the ad hoc energy that they feel every day of living in the city (Kibera) within a city, Nairobi, and creating art that reflects the dignity, determination, wit and resilience of ordinary Kenyans who are getting on with their lives.

That attitude, not of glorifying poverty, but of appreciating people’s humanity, is reflecting in all the works in ‘Wachembe’. Whether it’s the satiric ‘poster art’ that Maasai Mbili is best known for, seen especially in the so-called ‘politician poster’ paintings by Gomba and graffiti-like vinyl disks of Brian Odhiambo, or the hand-stitched metallic artworks of James Dundi or even the painted prints of Mbuthia Maina, (the M2 artist who co-curated the show with Rose Jepkorir), the M2 artists are a distinctive breed.

Today, there are many more artists whose main art materials are ‘found (recycled) objects’. However, ten years back, this was not the case. But M2 artists have been creating art working with such found items (also known as trash or junk) since their inception. And in the process of transforming trash into artistic treasures, they have made an important statement about the beauty, wisdom and artistic ingenuity that’s to be found in places that some would dismiss as an ‘ugly slum’ out of their ignorance and not knowing that it’s not only the rich and elite who appreciate art and creativity. On the contrary, it’s that appreciation for art and beauty that M2 artists have that is well represented at the Polka Dot.

The M2 artists will hold a workshop at Polka Dot on Saturday, 2^nd June. To attend you register with Polka Dot online.

Meanwhile, several openings transpired in the last fortnight. At Circle Art Gallery, Sidney Mang’ang’o’s ‘Imagined Structures’ exhibition opened 16^th May and will run through 9th June. This past Wednesday, Rhodia Mann’s Museum of Samburu Culture was launched at the International School of Kenya. The same day, seven (more) Ugandan artists’ group show opened in the Exhibition Hall of Village Market. It was just last month that six Ugandan painters did the same thing at Village. All have been talented and well-trained, many having the good fortune to have been taught at the oldest art school in East Africa, Makerere University’s Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art.

Finally, tomorrow afternoon, the artworks of Kenya-born painter Timothy Brooke will be showcased at One Off Gallery. ‘Earth and Sky’ will feature oil paintings and water colors as well as graphics by the internationally-acclaimed artist.