CELEBRATING ‘AFRICA ADORNED’

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (February 28, 2021)

 In Nairobi to celebrate the 37^th anniversary of the publicaton of her seminal book, ‘Africa Adorned’ on February 14th, the Australian photographer, Angela Fisher also met up with the man, Alan Donovan, who introduced her to the fellow photographer who would become her best friend and co-author of 17 more books on African ceremonies and culture, Carol Beckwith.

The all-color coffee table-top book, ‘Africa Adorned’ set off fireworks internationally when it came out in 1984. No one before Fisher had entered so deeply into African cultures to capture the exceptional beauty and decorative elegance of the Dinka, Rendille, Gabra, Kuba, Fulani and Ashanti peoples. No one before her had revealed the extent to which Africans decorated themselves in everything from gold, Venetian glass and hand-beaded corsets to cowrie shells, peacock feathers, and elegant hand-woven textiles.

But having studied cultural anthropology at University and worked closely for several years with the Aborigines before coming to Kenya in the early 1970s, Angela was prepared initially to travel up north with fellow Aussies collecting artifacts which would form the basis of her first craft exhibition in Nairobi at the African Heritage Pan-African Gallery in the mid-70s.

“I was already in Nairobi when my brother called and asked if I wanted to travel across the continent with him,” recalls Angela who was just beginning her build up her photographic skills at the time.

Having acquired a ‘wander lust’ from her step-father who used to take her camping under the stars as a child, Angela has always been keen on traveling. But to obtain enough material for her book, she would ultimately crisscross the region three times, and then head off to London, first to write a story for National Geographic and then to find the right publisher who would treat her images and texts with special care.

‘Africa Adorned’ has been out of print for the last few years. But hopefully, it is being reprinted soon. In the meantime, Angela and Carol met up at African Heritage and soon agreed to start working together. Both had a passion for exploring and documenting all they could find related to African rituals and ceremonies. Both had an awareness of how rapidly lives are changing all across the region, even to the extent that whole ceremonies, traditions, and skills could disappear as Western notions of modernity overtook and quashed age-old norms and values, just as we are seeing today in Kenya.

Amazingly, the two women might never have met but for a serendipitous set of circumstances on either side. Angela might have remained in Australia except that she had grown disillusioned with the way her government was treating the Aboriginese.

“I found myself watching a documentary on the Maasai, and it took me no time to quit my job, board a plane and fly to Kenya to meet the Maasai in person,” says Angela.

Meanwhile, Carol had been a masters student at the prestigious Boston Museum of Fine Art where she had won a two-year fellowship to study and travel.

“I went to Japan to study Zen calligraphy for a year, then to Burma and Cambodia, and almost as an afterthought, I stopped off in Kenya,” she says.

Then if Carol hadn’t taken that hot-air balloon ride with Angela’s brother, Simon, she might not have been advised to meet the sister,who he said would get on beautifully with Carol. And he was correct.

The two met up at African Heritage Garden where Carol had already been painting and beautifying Mr. Donovan’s wall with African designs. She already had produced one book of her own on the Maasai even as Angela was still in the process of getting Africa Adorned published.

But now 45 years later, the two have traveled over 300,000 miles together crisscrossing the continent. “We have been to 45 countries, and worked with 150 different cultural groups across the region,” says Carol whose last joint effort with Angela, their ‘African Twilight’ double-volume was formally launched a year and a half ago at African Heritage House during a big gala night attended by the Minister of Sports, Culture and Heritage, Amb. Dr. Amina Mohamed.

Currently, the two photographers share a three story house in London, which is close to their publisher. “Carol has the ground floor and I have the top, and with our studio in between, it’s a perfect fit,” says Angela who’s still in Kenya, making a film with Carol on life in the bush.

 

 

THE CLOSET HIDES SERIOUS ISSUES BEHIND HUMOR AND REALITY

 By Margaretta wa Gacheru (February 12,2021)

Peter Tosh had a lot of nerve. Why?

Because he and his theatre company, Liquid Arts Entertainment, had the guts to be the first to come out in public – not on Zoom, Skype, Instagram, or Twitter -- to put up a show at Kenya National Theatre.

They are not the first to stage a live performance this year in the City Centre. Maasai Mbili gave one at Alliance Francaise, but theirs felt more improvised and informal than ‘The Closet’.

Scripted, produced, and directed by Tosh, ‘The Closet’ is all about the truths that people stash away behind a closet door to keep out of the public’s gaze.

Usually, things stored are either dirty, untidy, socially unacceptable or simply stuff you don’t want others to know about what you do and think.

Apart maybe from your closest friend. But in Tosh’s ‘Closet’, even the best friend, Edwin (Brian Irungu) has a secret he hasn’t shared with his BFF Biko (Joel Muno), the guy with the biggest closet.

So the title is clearly a metaphor for keeping secrets and telling lies. In polite circles, keeping such secrets is called ‘being discrete’. Among the rest of us, it’s called cheating.

And that’s what our protagonist Biko is all about. He’s also known as a ‘player’ to Edwin, otherwise known as a womanizer, Casanova or cad.

Biko fits all those terms since he is not only married to Alice (Martha Wangui). He’s messing around, according to Edwin, with numbers of women, not only Melisa (Irene Njenga), latest in a long line of Biko’s lovers.

We only meet Melisa who Biko assures Edwin, is the last sweetheart to whom he has lied about being single and seriously committed himself to her. Now, he claims, he has met his perfect woman and wants her to be his wife.

Problem is, Biko already has one wife who we first meet at Edwin’s hotel where she’s a lady on fire. She’s angry about their marriage and how he’s jobless, lazy, and using her to pay the rent and other things.

Clearly, theirs is an unhappy affair. But when she meets her long-lost friend Melisa at Edwin’s, she claims her marriage is pure bliss. She can’t afford to tarnish her public image of being happily married, which for Kenya women seems to be a point of pride.

Melisa has a similar fantasy man to talk about as she describes her fiancé (since Biko has already proposed). She even utters his name, but the two women don’t realize their Biko is the same person.

When Alice figures it out, she is livid. But she is still not prepared to accept the divorce papers Biko hands her in the next scene. Instead, when Melisa suddenly shows up on the scene, the two women get into a cat fat that the audience loves. Even I, who hate to see women fight, find their wrestling amusing. It’s one of the many light touches that Tosh builds into a script that otherwise deals with serious marital issues like infidelity and deceit.

 Then the moment of reckoning arrives when Melisa wants to know who Biko really loves? Does he still love Alice?  When he can’t answer straight away, Alice looks relieved, but Melisa is now stuck.

The only person to swing into motion is ironically Edwin who jumps at the chance to now confess his love for Alice (the secret he has stashed away in his closet). Now is her moment to set Biko loose and get hitched with him.

But now, rather than anybody clarifying their intentions, the play ends abruptly as Biko and Alice leave together while Edwin and Melisa are left just like that.

There’s now a debate about whether this tale ends as a cliff-hanger, leaving us not knowing who ends up with whom? Were Alice and Biko going off to finalize their divorce or to renew their vows? Would Melisa finally end up with her fiancé or be left high and dry? And would poor Edwin, who had suffered in silence all those years, be left the lonely one, with simply a hotel to attend.

But then, there are those who claim the ending was clever and clear. People’s intentions, although subtly conveyed, came across implicitly to anyone who were reading carefully between Tosh’s lines.

They felt there was no question but that there would be a happy ending for Biko and Alice. They will reconcile and the rest will get by.

 

 

 

 

WAREMBO WASANII OPENS NEW SPACE IN EASTLANDS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (January 2021)

Joan Otieno has no shame. She’s an independent woman and an artist who can’t be held back from pursuing her work, however many obstacles she faces. And there have been many.

There’s the stepfather who insiste(postedd she become an accountant despite her doing art from primary school in Siaya all the way throughsecondary.

There’s her decision to be a housemaid in Nairobi instead of attending university because her sole goal was to practice art and she had no sugardaddy to help fund her passion.

Then when she found Dust Depo Art Centre, she violated a rule that compelled artists to leave the studio by dusk. That got her the boot.

Her struggles have gotten worse since then. But she’s rarely complained. Instead, the artist whose specialty is transforming trash (especially plastic bags) into artistic ‘treasures’ chose to share her skills with one of the most vulnerable groups, namely girls.

That’s how Warembo Wasanii came into being in 2018.

“Officially we are licensed as a community-based organization,” says Joan from her newest base of artistic operation at Ngomongo village in Korogocho ward, deep in Eastlands.

“You took the easiest way to get here,” she said having directed us to turn off Outerring road at Baba Dogo, then head to Lakisama and finally travel down several steep hills till we saw a giant graffiti face painted on mabati (corrugated iron sheet) which was unmistakably created by Joan.

Then adjacent to the female face was the large multicolored spray-painted sign, ‘Warembo Wasanii’ on the corner which further reassured us that we had arrived.

Joan had initially started the CBO at Bega wa Bega in Baba Dogo with fewer than a dozen girls, ages 18-25.

“Some were school dropouts, others we pulled off the streets where they might have gotten lost in crime or prostitution, and a few eventually even came from University,” says Joan who had to shift from there to Kariobangi North which got a bit tight as her group increased in numbers, including several young men.

The young women had already been taught by Joan how to create everything from plastic bag purses and mats to fashionable dresses with matching shoes and hats.

“We were already being invited to create fashion shows for UNEP,” recalls Joan whose girls wore dresses made from the packaging of plastic labels like ‘Always’ pads and ‘Trust’ condoms.

Having been cash-strapped from the beginning, Joan and her WW girls trooped (and still troop) once a week to the local dump where, for four hours, they collect plastic bags and tin cans for use as their primary artistic materials.

So while some artists claim they can’t create without costly paints and canvas, Joan with her fiercely independent spirit, relies on handouts from no one.

“Longinos Nagila was very helpful in helping us get the [sixth floor] space in K-North, but then, we got notice to move out as they were renovating the building,” says Joan who had to move again.

They hadn’t known where to go next, but then she remembered what she called three ‘dingy little empty rooms’ that she had seen every day as she’d walked from her home in Lakisama to K-North. There was a big empty unkempt lawn in front of the rooms. And while her WW regulars, namely Esther, Nzilani, Brenda, and Risper were not impressed and Joan was again cash-strapped, her mom finally chipped in to help her cover the deposit.

The rest is a marvel! After thoroughly cleaning those three rooms, Joan found sufficient mabati to wall off the lawn to extend WW’s working space. They elevated the walls with knotted plastic bags and found poles to hold up plastic shading where artists could create.

“Now we’ve created the Studio out of one room, the Gallery out of another, and the wardrobe or Closet out of the third. That’s where we store all our dresses,” Joan explains.

‘Some artists insist they cannot work unless they have a ready-made studio. Or they won’t exhibit except at a posh gallery, but we have our gallery and studio under one roof,” says Joan who deserves to take pride in her new space.

But then came COVID, and their place attracted over 30 girls, from ages 5 to 25. “We held workshops for them all, up until this week when nearly all went back to school.”

So her struggle to create amazing art out of trash continues. Meanwhile, she welcomes everyone to her Ngomongo open-air art arena.