ART ONLINE IS THE WAY WITH OR WITHOUT COVID-19

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted March 25 2020)

International Women’s Day, March 8^th, came and went with hardly a ripple of attention or public awareness of the day and its significance.

Yet a few artists took note and prepared exhibitions to run through the entire month. Unfortunately, those shows all got shot down by the coronavirus scare that didn’t just hit Kenya but is a global shutdown.

Nonetheless, a few of those shows can be seen online. Most of them cannot however. In future, more artists are likely to put their works online either with online galleries like KendiArt or One Off Gallery or as solo artists who either have websites of their own or display their work on Facebook as many do.

The shows that we missed were at the Waterfront Mall in Karen and Karen Country Club as well as at Kenya National Theatre’s Cheche Gallery and at the Art Caffe Westminister where you would have found the one-woman exhibition by Taabu Munyoki.

Fortunately for Taabu, Art Caffe has a Facebook page where you will find an interview with Taabu. Sadly, her paintings don’t appear.

If you had gotten to KNT’s Cheche Gallery in time, you would have seen Goddesses and Queens painted by Chela Cherwon and works by Afro-Renaissance artists Steve Ogallo aka Sogallo and Marvin Macharia aka Native.

At Karen Country Club, you could have seen art by Mary Ogembo, Nadia Wamunyu, Kay Sanaa, Rose Mwendwa, Stephanie Otolo and Celeste de Vries as well as by guys like Dickson Nedia, Kibet Kirui, Kamau Kariuki Absalom Aswani and Kenndy Kinyua among others.

Meanwhile, there were a number of major exhibitions that were held this month. There was Manjano at Village Market where Nadia Wamunyu won a top prize, Nairobi Design Week at Lava Latte where Chela and Naitiemu were exhibiting and the Art Auction East Africa which also had a preview exhibition at Circle Art Gallery.

It’s at the website for the Art Auction that you will find artworks by a number of outstanding women artists. Among them are women from around East Africa such as Souad Abdul Rassoul from Egypt as well as Theresa Musoke, Dr Lilian Nabulima, Sarah Wasswa and Stacey Gillian Abe all from Uganda.

Among the Kenyan women whose art can be found online, courtesy of Circle Art Gallery are Rosemary Karuga, Yony Waite, Tabitha wa Thuku, Annabel Wanjiku and Emily Odongo.

The conclusion that artists can draw from our current COVID-19 pandemic is that if they want their art to be seen in this day and age, they had better find ways to exhibit it online.

The easiest way to do that is to go on Facebook or Instagram and expose your art in online venues such as these. Already, many artists and designers are doing this. Some are using YouTube and a few are assembling websites of their own, such as Chelenge van Rampelberg who has her own Home Gallery.

Then there are a number of artists affiliated with specific galleries or online platforms like ArtLabAfrica or OneOffGallery. There are only a few women connected with these sites, such as Beatrice Wanjiku who is at both Art Lab and One Off sites. Florence Wangui is also at the One Off site.

So while a number of artists refuse to show their works online because they are paranoid that someone will ‘steal’ their ideas, especially ‘the Chinese’, the rest may choose to take the risk. But it is more likely those online will have greater opportunities to show and also sell their works. They will have a higher public profile which in the long run will be in their interest.

Ultimately, the easiest way to look up an artist is to google him or her and see their images and art for yourself.

KALOKI’S ART HAS UNPRECEDENTED SHOCK-VALUE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Apart from not being able to hold exhibitions in public spaces, most Kenyan artists’ lives haven’t been seriously disrupted by the coronavirus  since many were already working from home.

What with spaces like the GoDown evacuating artists so they could prepare for the ground-breaking of their brand new multipurpose art centre, many have set up studios in their home environs while putting more of their artwork online through multiple social media platforms.

Fortunately, one former GoDown artist already had a plan to be out of the country before the pandemic hit and after he had already moved out of the GoDown.

Kaloki Nyamai was already on his way to South Africa to take part in an inaugural exhibition in the pristine town of Stellenbosch, a short distance outside of Cape Town.

The only Kenyan artist to attend the Stellenbosch Triennial at the Stellenbosch University Museum, Kaloki may or may not have known beforehand that the town is renowned for being an ultra-wealthy, elite and snow white community. It was also a town apparently unprepared for a showcase of contemporary Pan-African artists, curated by the Xhosa feminist, Khanyisile Mbongwa.

Khanyisile had been picked to curate the show audaciously entitled ‘Tomorrow there will be more of us’ by two curators based at the Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust, Andi Norton and France Beyers. The two were actually the ones who’d conceived of the Triennial in the first place. Having supported public art exhibitions around the town for the last decade, they had wanted to launch a bigger showcase of African art. And so they came up with the Triennial idea.

They had known Khanyisile through her work with the Gugulective Artists Collective, based in Gugulethu township. What was ironic about their choice is that while their goal was to present art that promoted reconciliation among post-apartheid people, Khanyisile aimed to curate a show that exposed Pan-African art that explored economic and cultural themes which were bound to be implicitly political.

Kaloki’s participation in the Triennial had been complicated even before he reached the town renowned for giving birth to men considered the ‘framers of apartheid’. The materials he required to assemble his original installation idea were beyond the budget he’d been allocated. Then, once he got there, the space allocated him was much smaller than he’d anticipated.

His contribution to the show could have been over at that point. But Kaloki’s a resourceful man. And as he’d gotten to town in good time, he was advised by Khanyisile to ‘make do’ with whatever local materials he could find which he did.

Undaunted, Kaloki took some time to explore the town and visit as many wineries as possible. It was what he found in his local travels that compelled him to create an installation that became one of the most controversial and talked about in the entire Triennial.

Called ‘one of the show’s strongest’ and most evocative installations, Kaloki’s art was aptly entitled ‘Your Comfort is my Discomfort.’

In a word, he was appalled by the racist reaction of the local whites to his presence in their billionaires’ enclave. Having exhibited his art everywhere from London to Paris and beyond, Kaloki had never seen or felt such emotive hostility as he did in Stellenbosch.

His installation was a bold reaction to the many inhospitable encounters he’d had in a town committed to whiteness, wealth and disdain for multiracial democracy.

That was how Kaloki came to collect a huge pile of cow dung and place it at the centre of his installation. The heaping mount of manure was encased in a mabati-styled house which one had to enter first in order to see the artist’s reaction to abhorrent racist glares he had got from the locals discomfited by so many dark people in their town.

The low light inside his ‘house’ meant the mound was smelled before it was seen. The observer could also have been distracted by all the sisal strings hanging from Kaloki’s mabati ceiling. The ropes were reminiscent of the lynchings of blacks in a white supremacist world. But these ropes are all unknotted as if to say black people are no longer bound by your apartheid-system or racist terror tactics.

On the outside of Kaloki’s house hangs a large abstract painting meant to attract one to come see more of the artist’s works. His contribution to the Triennial has had a shock-factor that no other art piece has had.

Kaloki’s gift to Stellenbosch is unlikely to be forgotten soon.

KINOONI HOUSE, A PALACE EMBODYING ELEGANCE AND SIMPLICITY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (24 March 2020)

It’s not easy to snap a few photographs of Kinooni House and capture the elegance, simplicity and grandeur of a space originally built to be a palace for the Governor of Lamu, who was then the emissary to the Sultan of Zanzibar.

But it is easy to understand why a successful film producer and virtual reality games and film maker like Michel Reilhac would want to own such a spectacular home, even if he didn’t plan to live in Lamu all the year round.

Like so many Europeans who come to Lamu ‘by chance’ Michel arrived some 35 years ago, fell in love with the place and bought a house on the other side of the island which he named Nyumba ya Pumbao. He lived there with his family for a time, commuting between Lamu and either Paris, Berlin or Amsterdam.

But then in 2006, Michel got the chance to buy Kinooni House from the uncle of a dear friend who wanted to sell. “But it was only six years ago, in 2014 that we began renovating the house,” says Michel who adds that he put in the pool on the second floor and the garden, both of which one easily looks out on from the spacious open-air dining room that has an adjoining kitchen and a ceiling that’s meters above what one normally finds in a home that’s not a palace.

In fact, from the outside, one wouldn’t know Kinooni House had such a dazzling interior. But from the moment you step in the front door, you have to be struck by several astonishing things. First, the initial courtyard you meet is open-air like most houses in Lamu. But then, all the walls are pearly white and lustrous. And the ceilings are nearly four and a half meters high, with ceilings featuring parallel mangrove poles. There’s also a pool in the center of the courtyard next to a beautiful tree sprouting up beyond the ceiling and lush potted plants on every corner of the yard.

There’s a staircase leading to an invisible kitchen. But there are also beautiful alcoves covered in white cushions that Michel says is where yoga students came for classes during the Lamu International Yoga Festival which just took place a few weeks ago.

In fact, Michel wants to open up Kinooni House to artists as well as yogis who he feels could make excellent use of his polished coral stone abode that has five floors, each one having incredible views both of Lamu town and the Bay as well as the labyrinthine-styled corridors that take you into chambers where whole families live comfortably and peacefully.

“In the past, the Governor would have been Moslem so there was plenty of space for the women to live in one area of the palace, the men and boys to live in another,” says Michel.

The day we went to see Kinooni, Michel had actually called friends for an Open House since he clearly takes pride in his home. It’s a place that offers one surprise after another. For the courtyard, adjoining alcoves and spacious vestibule that lead you into two vast living areas, are just the beginning. Taking stairs everywhere, one has no idea that five steps up is where you’ll find the gracious green garden and swimming pool. You have already left your shoes at the door. But still it’s something of a surprise to discover that in order to get to the pool, around the garden and up more stairs into the dining area, you have to walk on lust green grass. There are no stepping stones or cement walkways, just grass mixed with healthy green trees, shrubs and even a spice and herb nursery situated beside another set of stairs.

Then walking up and around the open-air staircases and corridors that allow you to see the garden below, one finds spacious bedrooms on every floor along with leafy potted plants. But once you finally reach the top floor, you find Michel’s bedroom where windows look out on all four sides of the room, each window featuring geometric patterns that have a clear Islamic-influence.

Before we take our leave, Michel offers us hors d’hoeuvres and lime juice. By now, he has many visitors so we don’t want to interrupt. But Michel is a perfect host and invites us back in early 2020 when he will have a proper opening of Kinooni House. We assure him, we’ll be there!

NGUGIS’ BANNED PLAY POSTPONED INDEFINITELY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 17 March 2020)

Twice banned play by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ngugi wa Mirii, ‘Ngaahika Ndeeda’ was finally coming back to the Kenya stage for the first time in over 40 year.

Nairobi Performing Arts Studio was scheduled to stage both the Kikuyu and English versions of Ngugi and Ngugi’s controversial play in mid-June.

It would have been the world premiere performance of “I will marry when I want”. But for now, everything about the productions are on hold indefinitely.

Kenyan theatre generally has been especially hard hit by the Government directive to cancel all group gatherings, including public performances like plays, concerts, festivals and public debates of all kinds.

“This situation [meaning the COVID-19 pandemic] will have to end at some point, but no one knows when,” says Stuart Nash, the producer-director of both plays who is also the founder and artistic director of the Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS).

Mr. Nash had already begun rehearsals for the shows, starting last Saturday at Kenya National Theatre with the music. He had invited Wakonyote Njuguna, who was a student at Nairobi University when Ngaahika Ndeeda was banned, Kamiirithu Theatre and open-air stage bulldozed by the Government and both Ngugis detained overnight, to come teach NPAS students the traditional Kikuyu songs from the play.

Wakonyote, who in the 1970s and ‘80s was an actor in his own right, had already come to the Studio to talk to the students about the historical context and background of the play.

“We had planned to hold auditions for several parts this past Wednesday,” says Nash who has already filled several key roles, but is still looking for several more actors to fill the remaining roles.

The actors now committed to play some of the lead characters include Martin Githinji, Bilal Mwaura and Martin Kigundo as well as Anne Stellah and Nyce Wanjiru.

But there are several women’s roles available as well as a number of men’s. There are also parts available for Mau Mau Freedom Fighters, British soldiers, African home guards and workers as well as for singers, dancers, musicians and children. However, most of those will be filled by NPAS students since participation in the production provides credits towards the students getting certified by NPAS.

“We’d like to continue preparations for staging the plays online,” says Nash. But so far, he is still working out the details. One option is for actors to send in short videos to NPAS for casting consideration. But performing artists will be notified, again online.

“Initially I had planned to stage only the English version of Ngugis’ play. But then it dawned on me to put on both versions, the English and the original Kikuyu,” says Nash whose decision generated heaps of local enthusiasm and interest.

“But there was no way NPAS could work with two different casts,” Nash continues, noting both the finances and time constraints made it virtually impossible.

“I had no choice but to find actors with a command of both English and Kikuyu,” he says. But that has proved to be a challenge since some actors he had hoped to work with claimed their Kikuyu wasn’t good enough to be in the show.

But as there is no shortage of theatrical talent in Kenya, Nash is optimistic about getting his full cast together even if auditions have to continue online. The issue, of course, is when the shows will open.

“Even if the ban was lifted after 30 days, that would provide too little time to be ready by June,” says Nash who had also had plans to take the productions to Nakuru, just as he did last year with the cast of Sarafina.

This weekend, the widow of Ngugi wa Mirii, Margaret Wairimu will come to Nairobi to see Mr Nash. “We had planned to have her share with our students about the historical background as well as her personal experiences from that time since she was in the original cast,” says Nash who has produced musicals in Kenya since he was invited in 2015 to come from the West End of London (UK’s version of Broadway) to stage musicals for one international school in Nairobi.

Since then, he started NPAS in 2016 and staged musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Caucasian Chalk Circle and most recently Sarafina.

When he originally chose to do the Ngugis’ play, he hadn’t known much about the historical circumstances of Ngaahika Ndeeda. But having learned more, he is still keen to stage both plays for Kenyan audiences.

DISCON 2020 POSTPONED TILL FURTHER NOTICE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted on Rotary Timeline March 15 2020)

DISCON 2020 or the District 9291 District Conference 2020 has been postponed until further notice, according to Rotary D9212 District Governor Joe Otin.

Following the Kenya Government’s directive that “all public gatherings and events that have large gatherings…have been banned,” DISCON 2020 has been put on hold but has not cancelled the annual event.

Multiple options are being considered, says DG Joe. He, together with his National DISCON Committee, remains positive and hopeful that once the ban is lifted, the DISCON will be re-scheduled.

“It needs to be rescheduled before mid-May since Rotary International’s annual conference will be taking place in June and we don’t want our DISCON to take place too close to it,” observed DC Elect Patrick Obath.

Ideally, Rotarians, Rotaractors and Interactors will know when the DISCON 2020 will be held by mid-April.

In the meantime, DG Joe recommends that all Rotarians stay in touch with their local communities and advise them on the essential messages that have come out both from the Kenya Government and the World Health Organization (WHO). That is, to wash you hands regularly since we know the coronavirus is transmitted not through the air but through material objects, be it by contact with another human being, a door knob or even the seat of a public transport vehicle.

We have also been advised to stay away from crowded places since these are where the virus can be most easily transmitted. And once you detect the symptoms, including fever and shortness of breath, you are encouraged to isolate yourself from others in order that you not be the one contaminating others.

“It is true that we are in a health crisis,” says DG Joe. “But now is the time to stay calm and follow the advisories. We shall overcome this emergency,” he adds.

In the meantime, the DISCON committee is considering options on the way forward for this year’s DISCON. “It has been proposed that we conduct the conference electronically, which we are considering,” says committee Chairman James Mwangi of the Rotary Club of Naivasha. There is also the option, once the ban on public gatherings is lifted, to reschedule the DISCON at the Sarit Expo Centre. The last and most extreme suggestion is to cancel this year’s DISCON altogether.

The final decision as to the fate of DISCON 2020 is to be determined very soon. In the meantime, as DG Joe says, “Stay safe, be sensitive to others and stay positive that we will overcome this crisis in the spirit of Rotary.”

‘THE DEBATE’ DARES TO DISCUSS MOST CONTENTIOUS TOPIC

                                                               Mbeki Mwalimu and her Back to Basics cast in 'Live @ 9

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 11 March 2020)

Talking heads currently occupy a big chunk of time on local TV discussing a range of topics. But I doubt if any of them have ever deliberated on the one addressed last weekend when Back to Basics premiered in Nick Ndeda’s third original script simply entitled ‘The Debate’.

“It might be difficult to imagine that a show where the cast sits in one place for the whole play can be exciting. But you’ll be surprised to find that it is” says Ndeda just before the Sunday night performance of the script that he co-wrote with B2B founder, Mbeki Mwalimu.

“The story was her idea. It was my job to translate her thoughts into the scripted play,” he says modestly. It was a challenge he’d taken on twice before, first when he wrote ‘Man Moments’, inspired by one act of B2B’s ‘Breeze II’, and then, ‘Decompressed’ which the company staged  last December.

‘The Debate’ takes place on the TV talk show ‘Live at 9’, anchored by Donna Jawali (Mwikali Mary) whose program apparently thrives on controversial topics that pick up top ratings every week.

But the topic of ‘Rape in Marriage’ generates even more explosive energy than even Donna can control.

                                                        (L-R) Gilbert, Bilal, Mwikali, Wakio and Agnes in Live@9

“The show wasn’t really meant to be a comedy since it’s a serious topic,” Ndeda says. “But there are several moments in the show that audiences find funny,” he says, understating the amusement local audiences found, especially in the contentious word battles that went on between hardcore radical feminist, Dr Monika Marete (Wakio Mzenge.) and bombastic alpha-male chauvinist and divorcee, Kamau wa Kamau (Gilbert Lukalia).

The other two debaters who also brought their own far-out perspectives to the debate are Pastor Ingrid (Agnes Kola) of the MCN (Middle Class Nairobi) church and the writer and rape survivor, Tom (Bilal Mwaura).

Donna is delighted to bring up the topic on TV since Kenyans, until recently, rarely spoke in public, leave alone on TV, about sex. It’s a titillating topic that’s still taboo to discuss publicly, leave alone debate. Even the issue of rape is usually discussed only in euphemistic terms such as ‘domestic abuse’ or ‘violence against women.’

So to hear Donna announce her show’s theme of marital rape is a stunner despite her quoting actual news reports of rape on the rise countrywide. It is her debaters who flesh out the topic, often vehemently convinced of the correctness of their radical positions.

Their deliberations makes for explosive moments when not even Donna can cool down the heated debates over everything from conjugal rights and marital servitude to sex as a gift from God and women as ‘sex toys or baby-making machines.

Kamau even insists that spousal rape is a myth; it doesn’t exist. He dismisses the subject outright. His view is that matrimonial vows implicitly accord marital and sexual rights, irrespective of whether one spouse consents to the advances of the other or not.

Dr Monika will have none of that. She adamantly rejects Kamau’s views on everything from the irrelevance of consent to ‘foreplay’ being unnecessary. The word wars between them get so highly charged that Donna finally has to kick them both off the set.

But it is Pastor Ingrid who has the most dumbfounding positions on marital rape. Her perspective is similar to Kamau’s. She agrees there is no such thing as rape in marriage since women are meant to ‘satisfy’ their men in all respects. Both she and Kamau claim wedlock not only assures sexual rights but responsibilities as well. He bases his argument on marital vows while her basis for accepting subordination to her man is Bible-based. But either way, Dr Monika sees marriage on their terms as woman being enslaved to her spouse.

But it is Tom who drops the IED (Improvised Explosive Device) on the show when he says he knows first-hand that marital rape is real because he has been raped by his wife.

Tom, despite being a shy, introverted writer, confesses he has a low sex drive which means his wife was never ‘satisfied’. Getting graphic about what she did to him is the final ‘juicy bit’ that heightened Kamau’s careless ‘trash talk’ and Monika’s ferocious rebuttal. It also inspires Ingrid to stand up and sing a hymn to comfort Tom.

The dissonance of that final row leads to Donna ousting both Monika and Kamau as her last resort to reclaiming control of her live show.

B2B has been bold and innovative from the start, but The Debate takes the cake!

7th Art Auction sells million shilling artworks

                                                                    Just the two of us by Geoffrey Mukasa

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 11 March 2020)

Nearly three-quarters of the artworks sold under the auctioneer’s hammer at the 7^th art auction east Africa that garnered KSh22.5 in sales.

The amount was slightly less than last year when an unprecedented bidding war between two telephone callers resulted in one original E.S. Tingatinga painting selling for more than Sh6 million and thus jacking up last year’s total sales. This year, Tingatinga’s paintings didn’t sell for as much as last year’s lot. However, they still sold well: ‘Beautiful bird in tree’ went for Sh1,291,400 while his charming ‘Woman Washing Laundry by the Lake’ sold for Sh821,800

There were several other artworks this year that sold for over a million shillings. The highest sale was Yony Waite’s ‘Beyond Lukenya Mountains’ which went for Sh1,350,100. Then came Tingatinga’s ‘Untitled’ (Beautiful Bird in Tree) that went for Sh1,291,400. Then Peterson Kamwathi’s ‘Untitled Study’ for Sh1,232, and Geoffrey Mukasa’s ‘Portrait of a Blond Girl’ which went for Sh1,012,380. His other two paintings went for Sh986,160 and Sh563,520.

                                                                     E.S. Tingatinga's Women doing laundry by the Lake

Despite embassy alerts about an imminent terrorist attack, the pervasive jitters over the coronavirus and the hectic Friday night traffic, the 7^th Art Auction East Africa did very well.

“I got a number of calls before the auction from people explaining why they wouldn’t make it this year,” said Art Auction curator Danda Jaroljmek.

“I was told they were taking seriously the embassy alerts about Al Shaabab preparing to attack one of Nairobi’s tourist hotels,” she added. Nonetheless, in spite of a few less bidders arriving at the Radisson Blu Hotel for this year’s Art Auction, she noted there were more telephone bidders this year than in the past.

The Art Auction featured more artworks than in previous years. In total, 70 lots from seven East African countries were on display both at the Hotel last Friday night, March 6^th. They were also at Circle Art Gallery the week before so that prospective buyers could have a good look at the artworks, which included more sculptures than ever before.

                                                                                   Robert Saidi's Girl Musing

It’s Circle Art’s founder and curator Danda who also established the Contemporary and Modern East African Art Auction in 2013. It was she who assembled artworks from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania as well as Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt and Congo. The auction represented both a primary and secondary market with works coming directly from the artists as well as from owners of art who brought their works to Circle Art for Danda to decide if they could be included in the auction.

Of the sculptures, it was George Kyeyune’s ‘Contemplation’ that sold for Sh862,890. After him came Kioko Mwitiki’s life-size ‘Racehorse’ which went for Sh500,000. Donald Wasswa’s wood and copper ‘Agaba’ sold for Sh387,420, George Lilanga’s ‘Untitled’ (Jembe), Sh190,000 and Peter Kenyanya’s red granite ‘Armoured Warrior’ went for Sh164,360.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese painter, Salah Elmur’s ‘Haras Ros’ sold for Sh868,760 while Congolese painter Robert Saidi’s lovely ‘Girl Musing’ went for Sh610,480. Saidi’s fellow Congolese artist Houston Maludi’s ‘Kinshasa Street Scene’ sold for Sh563,520 as did the painting ‘Sleeping Bathers in the River of the past’ by the South African artist who launched his arts career in exile in Nairobi, Charles Sekano.

                                                                          Million shilling ES Tingatinga

There were other Ugandan artists besides Mukasa who did well at the auction, including Eli Kyeyune whose Untitled ‘Lady in Red’ sold for Sh598,740 and Romano Lutwana whose ‘The Kiss’ went for Sh516,560. And of the Egyptians, Nazir Tanbouli’s ’Visitation’ sold for Sh434,380 while Soaud Abdel Rassoud’s “I am not alone’ sold for Sh328,720.

Finally, among Kenyan artists, it wasn’t only Kamwathi and Yony Waite’s artworks that did well this year. For instance, Paul Onditi’s ‘Red Light II’ sold for Sh739,630 while Sane Wadu’s ‘When God met man’ went for Sh528,300. Richard Onyango’s ‘Pool Leaning series IV’ sold for Sh493,080, Ancent Soi’s ‘Blue Beasts’ went for Sh446,120, Richard Kimathi’s ‘The Lover’ for Sh375,680, Kaloki Nyamai’s ‘Kana Ka Musyemi’ went for Sh387,420, Tabitha wa Thuku’s ‘Blooming’ went for Sh352,200 while Onyis Martin’s ‘Recollections’ went for Sh328, 720 and Emily Odongo’s ‘Ascension’ sold for Sh305,240.

There were several more Kenyans whose artworks sold at the Auction, including Rosemary Karuga, Boniface Maina, Kamal Shah, Annabel Wanjiku and Peter Elungat among others.

But whether an artwork sold for a million or less than 100,000 (as did one work on paper by Ahmed Abushariaa), it was still a feather in every artist’s cap who took part in this year’s Art Auction East Africa.

                                                                       Yony Waite's Beyond Lukenya Mountains

VALENTINE SHOWS WERE PLAYFUL AND POETIC

Dr. Zippy Okoth as 'Agatha'

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 14 February 2020)

Both Zippy Okoth and John Sibi Okumu were ‘in their element’ last week when Valentine’s Day put many people’s focus on Love, be it romantic, puppy, pleasurable or drenched in pain.

Fortunately, neither performing artist had much time to dwell on pain. Sibi-Okumu, at a private reading of poetry that I had the good fortune to attend, gave a delightful rendition of poems by everyone from Shakespeare, Yeats and Dorothy Parker to Maya Angelou, e.e. cummings and Ogden Nash.

“I’m a great lover of poetry so I was happy to come,” says Sibi who confessed he took some time poring over his many poetry anthologies to find just the best selection to suit the occasion, which was casual and did not necessarily include lots of poetry lovers.

Nonetheless, many unexpected guests showed up at the event. They had come specially to listen to Kenya’s own renowned poet-playwright and actor who is also a former TV interviewer at ‘The Summit’ and former French teacher.

Meanwhile, Dr. Zippy Okoth specifically chose Valentine’s Day to stage her latest one-woman performance, ‘Agatha: A Hopeless Romantic’’ at Kwa Wangwana Wine Garden in Lavington.

‘Agatha’ just happens to be the actor-playwright’s middle name, so we can assume her show was, like her previous two, based on her ‘Diary of a Divorced Woman’, autobiographical.

But unlike the Diary shows, where Zippy was slightly self-pitying due to her ex-spouse’s gross misconduct, ‘Agatha’ was light and lovely. Zippy was in fine form as a singer-actor whose mixture of song and story (more than seven short tales about her passing flings with a wide assortment of interesting men) was deliciously fresh. She veritably frolicked from one fellow to the next. But one has to say she only seemed to have one boyfriend at a time.

Kwa Wangwana turned out to be the perfect venue for her performance as it was cosy, while her style was conversational, interactive and intimate. And as her audience was largely female, that also may have helped her convey her stories frankly and freely.

‘Agatha’ seemed to be a show that is all about ‘changing the narrative’ of the traditional (Westernized) woman who defers to her man and waits on him like the subordinate ‘help-mate’ who was born of Adam’s rib.

Zippy’s show was utterly entertaining as her magical mix of stories and songs like Crystal Gayle’s ‘Hopeless Romantic’ was accompanied by keyboardist David Mwangi.

Coke Studio Season 9 - Lagi Bina/Chal Mele Noon Challiye - Sanam Marvi ...

KAWANI QUILTS BASED ON SIDDI STYLE A HIGHLIGHT AT QUILT FESTIVAL

BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU (posted 6 March 2020)

This year’s Kenya Quilt Guild biannual exhibition at the Sarit Expo Centre was called the Festival of Stitches.

“I feel it was the best exhibition we have ever had,” says Guild founder and this year’s chief judge, Gillian Rebelo.

Many factors featured in the three-day Festival’s success, she says. One was that not only were the best quilts created by guild members in the past year on display. So was stitching by the Kenya Embroiderers’ Guild.

So were several ‘Artful Bras’ displayed and sold by Faraja, the non-profit organization made up of cancer survivors. “We created the ‘artful bras’ to raise awareness about the problem of breast cancer,” says Gill who is also this year’s Guild chairperson.

But one of the most exciting innovations of this year’s festival was the Guild’s decision to invite the internationally acclaimed quilter Margaret Fabrizio to participate in their event.

The 90-year-old American quilt artist, who celebrated her birthday with guild-members a few hours before her departure from Kenya, had been specially invited to show her quilts at the festival and conduct workshops on her rare technique of quilt-making. She displayed six of her Kawandi quilts during the festival, but also made four more while she was at Sarit giving demonstrations of the ancient style of stitching.

An exceptional woman who has had several illustrious careers in her lifetime, they include lecturing in music and harpsichord at Stanford University, professionally performing in major orchestras across the US, composing music for harpsichord, and painting in mixed media and collage. She even raised funds to buy a redwood forest in northern California “to protect the trees,” she says, since those woods are hers.

She only began quilting at age 58, at a time when many people are thinking of retiring. Not Margaret. Instead, she began having solo exhibitions of her quilts and became one of the important quilt artists in the US.

But in 2011 she attended a quilt exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. That is where she got so intrigued with the unusual technique of quilting practiced by Indian women of African descent that she decided to go and find them herself.

By that time Margaret had turned 80, but that didn’t stop her. The quilters were Siddis, Africans who’d been brought to India as slaves of the Portuguese some 400 years ago. They lived far off the beaten path in Karnataka state. But just as she is today, Margaret was intrepid and determined to find them and learn first-hand how to make the hand-stitched ‘kawandi’ (meaning quilts in the Siddi’s mother tongue, Konkony).

Margaret eventually found her way to them, stayed two weeks and learned what turned to be a relatively simple yet precise technique of quilting.

“Kawandi are made out of old clothes and don’t require a big investment,” Margaret told SN. “One reason I came to Kenya was not just to meet the Guild. It was to teach the technique to poor black women who then can make kawandi  quilts themselves and sell them so they can ideally improve their living standard,” she says.

“I feel it’s my way of ‘giving back’ since I learned the technique of Kawandi from poor black women in India,” she adds.

She gave two workshops (apart from the one she shared with Guild members) during her three weeks in Kenya, one at Langata women’s prison, the other with a group of embroiderers from Kibera and Kawangare.

“The technique requires no investment apart from their time,” says Margaret who found those two workshops among the most rewarding moments of her time in Kenya.

WHERE TO STAY DURING DISCON 2020

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 6 March 2020)

One reason Rotary D9212’s District Conference 2020 (DISCON 2020) is being held this year at the new Sarit Expo Centre is because it is so strategically located in Westlands.

There are many lovely hotels and gracious, well-priced BnB’s (Bed and Breakfast’s) where our visiting Rotarians can stay. Many of them are within walking distance of the Expo Centre. All the ones listed below are priced per night including breakfast. We also got a special rate for Conference attendants!

The closest one is the Sankara Hotel, just 100 metres away from Sarit, but it is also the most expensive at USD300 and $245 for either a double or single room.

The next closest is the Movenpick Hotel and Residences, just 250 meters from the Centre. It’s priced more reasonably at $180 and $150.

A number of places are said to be around 500 metres away. They include the Best Western Plus Westlands, priced at $210 and $190; the King Fisher at $110 and $100 respectively and Bid Wood Suites at $160 and $140. Pride Inn Westlands is just a bit further away at 550 metres, priced at $120 and $102.

The Zehneria Portico is just a bit further from Sarit at 600 metres, but it’s the most reasonably priced of those on this list. It’s priced at $100 and $90 a night.

The Radisson Park Inn is slightly farther from the Centre at 650 metres, with the rooms priced at $200 and $175.

Finally, the Ibis Styles is a bit further still at 850 metres, but the rooms are almost as moderately priced as the Zehneria at $110 and $90 a night.

So you can make your bookings now, you will be likely to get the hotel or BnB that you want. But if you wait, these places might be full, so it is wise to book now.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the DISCON2020 and at the pre-conference activities as well.

DARK WATERS, A LEGAL THRILLER REVIEWED

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (3 March 2020)

Dark Waters is a legal thriller that came out late last year based on a true story about a corporate defense attorney who risks his career and potentially even his life when he turns into an environmental activist who fights for the little guy who’s been grossly aggrieved by one of his law firm’s biggest corporate clients, DuPont Chemical.

Mark Ruffalo may be best known among ‘Avenger’ fans as the Hulk. They might be doubtful how he could play a big-time corporate lawyer. But in a way, Ruffalo’s character in Dark Waters, Rob Bilott is also angered by the injustice he’s compelled to see when a childhood neighbor from West Virginia comes looking for him to show him why the farmer needs Bilott’s help. And like the Hulk, he takes on the ‘impossible’ tasks of fighting the injustice by defending the little guy who’s been virtually bankrupted by DuPont’s careless poisoning of farmer’s herd of 190 cows.

Born and raised in the backwaters of West Virginia, Bilott had made his family and neighbors proud of his success as a legal defender of rich and powerful corporations like DuPont. But once he’d been shown to way DuPont had knowingly released poisonous chemicals into the ground water systems around their factories, he (like Hulk) got really mad.

His wife Sarah (played with surprising sensitivity and maturity by Anne Hathaway) is initially opposed to what quickly becomes her husband’s obsession, seeking environmental and social justice for the humble farmer (played brilliantly by Bill Camp).

But in spite of her fears, seeing her husband’s life threatened as he gets closer to unearthing the truth about DuPont’s criminal role in destroyed a whole water system and livelihood for an entire community, she stands by him.

Even his law firm sticks with him, despite his struggle to obtain justice for his childhood friend and neighbor taking several years to achieve.

The film might sound rather dry and dull, especially as Bilott takes years reading through the many law suits against DuPont that the corporate giant invariably overturned (since they had the means to hire the sharpest lawyers that money could buy).

But ‘Dark Waters’ is real David and Goliath-like thriller based on Bilott’s true story, which was written up in 2016 as a New York Times magazine piece by Nathaniel Rich and called ‘The Lawyer who became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.’

In real life, Ruffalo is the one who really championed this film. He first read the story in New York Times and felt passionate about running with it as far as he could take it.

He then took it to the film’s future director, the independent American filmmaker Todd Haynes whom he persuaded to direct. Ruffalo and Haynes then got Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan to write the screenplay which Ruffalo not only starred in as Rob Bilott but also co-produced with Christine Vachon of Killer Films.

So while Ruffalo may play a super-hero comic book character in Marvel’s Avengers, he’s also a human super-hero in real life.

HATS GALORE ROUSE A WHOLE VILLAGE IN LAMU

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 3 March 2020)

Every other year since 2010, the unbelievable creativity of ordinary Kenyans comes alive for the public to see during the biennial Shela Hat Contest that happened last Saturday, 29^th February on Peponi Beach.

This year was no exception except that we witnessed more imagination, industry, enthusiasm and originality on the part of mainly Shela villagers than ever before.

The sixth Shela Hat Contest attracted almost 150 different hat-creators to take part in what some observers felt was the most impressive hat competition of the last decade.

The initial impetuous for the first hat contest came from Herbert Menzer, the retired German restaurateur who accidentally landed in Lamu while in transit to Mombasa and instantly fell in love with Kenya’s most romantic Indian Ocean isle.

He was especially enamored with Shela village with its unblemished sand dunes, labyrinthian walkways wide enough for donkeys but not cars, and delicious breezes that fueled the dhows that sailed up and down the bay between Lamu town and Shela village.

Already contemplating what his next career would be, Herbert became a builder of beautiful Swahili-styled houses that he equipped with modern amenities like running hot water and electricity. But while the building was going on, Herbert saw his workers making their own hats rather than wear the hot, heavy helmets that most workmen wear.

“I was so struck by the imaginative use of local materials to make their hats, I decided to create a contest for local people to show off their best hats,” says Herbert who gave the top 30 adjudicated hats cash prizes, ranging from Sh60,000 down to Sh1,500.

This year’s Hat Contest got mixed reviews.

“You could easily see the difference between hats made over weeks and months and those slapped together in a day or two,” says Nils Korschen who with Fatima Khan-Phillips and Ruth Rukwaro judged the competition both this year and in 2018. “Judging is never easy, but this year we gave first prize to a woman, Rose Nakami, who we could see had put a lot of effort into making her hat,” adds Nils who is a second-generation co-owner of Peponi Hotel with Carol Korschen who also manages Shela’s premier boutique hotel.

Rose had finely shredded plastic soda bottles to make a beautiful, multi-colored bouquet.

But plastics were not the only trash that got cleared by creative hat makers this year. Everything from hammered bottle tops, rubber flipflops and light bulbs used as locust’s eyes to lobster fishnets, sharks’ vertebrae, coconut shell, driftwood and ‘gunia’ hessian sacks were used to make a wide array of colorful creatures and concepts this year.

For instance, the animal kingdom was well represented with everything from crocodile, cobra, locust and vulture to a tortoise, octopus, stingray and crab which were worn proudly either by a model or the hat maker. Then there were giraffe, rhino, fish, flamingo and even a dinosaur-like mother and child whose hat-bearers stood in line under a hot Shela sun until they got their chance to take centre-stage, first before the judges who carefully appraised each hat and judging for quality of craftsmanship as well as creativity and originality.

After that, each hat and its model went sent to pose with professional German photographer Roland Klemp whose previous festival photos are still on display at the Lamu Fort Museum next to the brilliant conceptual contraption made by three young German artist-friends of Herbert, Marc, Felix and Max.

There were also a few political pieces in the contest, including ones complaining about coal, war, pollution and unwanted boda boda drivers who are seen as a menace to villagers who are more comfortable being a car-less UNESCO Heritage site than a boda boda speedway.

But this year’s hat contest was less about protest and more about the pleasure that Herbert was giving to the village by having created not only a Hat Contest which undoubtedly has no replica of a similar kind anywhere else in the world. He also combines the Saturday of hats with Sunday’s Mad Hatter Dhow Races, both of which feature handsome cash prizes.

Both events attract local and international audiences who come to watch either on the beach or at Peponi Hotel where visitors can relax and watch ten dhows compete for more cash prizes.

And as for the hats, their owners will take them home after another photo-shoot this week for an international publication sure to bring still more positive vibrations to Lamu and Shela.

FORUM FOCUSES ON GROWING CULTURAL APPRECIATION

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 3 March 2020 for 6 March)

Twaweza Communications linked up with the British Council last week to conduct a two-day forum focusing on ‘Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth’.

Officially titled ‘Culture Grows: Between Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’, the program was held at Nairobi National Museum in the Botanical Gardens, next to the Snake Park.

Spearheaded by Prof. Kimani Njogu, who’s the founder of Twaweza and co-founder with Joy Mboya, Managing Director of the GoDown Art Center of the Creative Economy Working Group, the CEWG had already been conducting inter-generational dialogues among Kenyans over the past two years. So the issue for Kenya’s past, present and future had already been one of Kimani’s central concerns.

As such, he could easily relate to the subject of ‘cultural heritage for inclusive growth’ which, coincidentally is the name of a pilot program that British Council has been running in three countries, namely Kenya, Vietnam and Columbia.

The forum was attended by cultural representatives from all three countries who are involved in projects that address various dimensions of cultural heritage, which was defined as not just related to past events and traditions, but also to contemporary cultural practices and future possibilities.

Other participants in the symposium came from the UK, Uganda and Somalia, many of whom were also concerned with ‘inclusive growth’. This meant that there was much discussion about how to ensure that positive aspects of indigenous and contemporary culture can be received by the youth.

Day One was opened by the forum’s MC , Mwihaki Muraguri who welcomed participants and also gave a brief historical background on the National Museum. She was followed by introductory remarks from Prof. Kimani and Jill Coates, current country director of British Council. Dr George Abungu, former director general of Kenya’s National Museums was given the hefty task of sharing a broad cultural context for appreciating the symposium’s topic as well as the challenges  ahead.

Over the two days, panels and plenaries explored issues ranging from partnerships between cultural heritage and technology to specific programs addressing aspects of cultural inclusion, especially those embracing the youth.

From Kenya that meant hearing from groups like Wajukuu Arts whose spokesman Ngugi Waweru explained how slum children are gaining appreciation of culture through Wajukuu’s focus on training them in the Arts.

During the symposium, participants were also taken to cultural projects that BC supports such as the Book Bunk, DreamKona in Uhuru Gardens and the Permanent Presidential Music Commission.