By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 15 April 2019)
Osborne Macharia
and Kevo Abbra are surrealist storytellers currently showing off ‘7 Years of
Afro-Futurism’ at Alliance Francaise.
They are
also magical mixed media men. One’s a photographer, the other a fashion
designer and together they create captivating images complete with caption-like
stories that feel like they’re fresh out of somebody’s hallucinogenic dream.
Nairobi's underground Fight Club
Presented as
if the images are anthropological finds, the seven sets of photographs are
described as if they are ‘discoveries’ made by the two as they traveled to
obscure corners and enclaves of Nairobi.
These never-before-seen
clubs, clans and ‘special units’ are all said to be “little known…till now.” That
line, found at the bottom of all seven captions apparently translates to mean
they all came out of the fertile imaginations of Osborne’s and Kevo’s minds.
The show is
puzzling at first. But once you realize these two are ‘merry pranksters’ having
fun being as plausibly outrageous as possible, you have to marvel at their genius.
They seem to
take as their baseline of believability, Nairobi’s popular urban culture,
including everything from Marvel comics and ‘Black Panther’ references to
mitumba and Mau Mau generals including Mau Mau wives. They tune in to youth fetishes
for fashion, fancy hairdos and ‘found objects’ transformed into junk art.
But then
they take off into uncharted territories of consciousness. They make their ‘discoveries’
everywhere from Kawangware and Kipipiri forest to Kibera, Lake Magadi and unknown
sites beneath Nairobi’s CBD.
Only two
sets of the seven feature women but their women are glorious creatures who you’d
love to meet in real life. The four Kipipiri women are said to be a ‘special
unit’ of Mau Mau Generals’ wives who, like their spouses are ‘leaders’ in their
own right. Whenever there’s a full moon, they emerge with super high-styled hair
do’s.
But it’s the
Lake Magadi mamas who are even more intriguing. They are “former female
circumcisers” who abandoned FGM to now design elegant ethnic fashions and
mentor young women in both making and modelling those same fashion designs. Trained
to be self-sufficient and able to succeed both locally and globally, the Magadi
girls have mainly been ‘rescued’ by the mamas from child marriages. So while
the mamas may be antiques, they’re providing an important services nonetheless.
The men’s groups
are mainly seers or defensive fighters. The ‘Kawangware Defense Force’ is made up
of HIV/AIDS orphan boys who go to school by day and go on duty with KDF by
night. Hooked up with discarded boda boda helmets and home-made electronic that
can trace criminal prowlers, the KDF’s work is to detect and then relay ‘untraceable’
calls to alert the local police.
Another
group of fighters were ‘found’ underground beneath the CBD. Osborne and Abbria
only found five midgets who are members of the Nairobi Fight Club. Funded by
local elites, they’re involved in intensive training. But the ‘researchers’ didn’t
identify what they were being trained to
fight for. Could that suggest there will be another installment of their Afro-Futurist
‘documentation’?
There are
two groups of seers. One is the Ilgelunot, blind Maasai elders who were rescued
by Wakanda’s King T’Chaka after which they became his trusted advisors with
extraordinary powers acquired from exposure to the mysterious metal, Vibranium.
The other
group belongs to a secret unit of Mau Mau fighter who also have special powers.
Called ‘Macicio’, they are five opticians who create hand-crafted spectacles
(similar to Cyrus Kabiru’s C-Stunners) that allow them to have night vision.
Their specs enabled the Mau Mau to spot their enemies throughout the night.
Finally, ‘Remember
the Rude Boy’ is meant to be a tribute to Kevo Abbra’s father who is said to
have been a tailor based in the ‘ghetto’. His tailoring friends created an
eclectic fashion collection made out of up-cycled mitumba (second-hand clothes).
The collection was staged as a fashion show in tribute to the elder Abbra. The
first show is said to have been in Kibera but it’s set to travel all over
Nairobi and then ‘across Africa’.
There’s
enough fantasy in this Afro-Futurist showcase to assume that all seven stories
are pure fiction. Nonetheless, there are many relevant themes sprinkled throughout
this remarkable exhibit to make one admire the blurred lines between fantasy
and reality.
What’s more,
a record-breaking film like ‘Black Panther’ proved that the whole world, not
only Kenyans, have a thirst for flights of fantasy that are conceivably true.
So why not go for an improbable flight with Osborne and Abbra and delight in
their fabulous ‘discoveries’.
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