SOME MEMBERS OF MUKURU ARTS COLLECTIVE AT ADAM MASAVA'S (BLACK TSHIRT) STUDIO
By
Margaretta wa Gacheru
Soon after Adam
Masava came back from his first successful art exhibition in the Czech
Republic, he began teaching art to school children from his old neighborhood
Mukuru wa Njenga as his way of ‘paying back’ his ‘hood for all it had taught
him – both good and bad things—as he grew up.
“I also saw
school-age kids getting lost because they didn’t have useful things to do in
their spare time. I wanted to engage them in art as a way of learning they
could use their imaginations to solve their problems,” Masava says. One of
those kids, Ann Mumbi, 18, was just age six when she first met him teaching art
at her school. She just came back to studying art with him a few months ago.
As word got
round that he was teaching art for free, the age of his students rose. “I
eventually had to move out of the school and invite students to come work in my
studio,” says the artist/art teacher who currently has over 40 students, aged
from 17 to 39.
On the day
BDLife went to visit his studio, now known as Mukuru Art Collective, just over
a dozen students were at the double decker studio. “Now that schools have
reopened, many have gone back to their schools,” he observes.
But Masava’s
same democratic, open-door policy remains, irrespective of the numbers. He
doesn’t set limits on membership in the collective since he truly believes that
art can serve as a means of uplifting people’s lives, giving them a sense of
purpose and a means of self-expression. Now he coaches everyone from an ex-convict,
female boxer, and former sign-writer to a former math teacher, eggshell artist,
and award-winning teenager. Alex Mungare, 17, just won the Toyota ‘Dream Car’
Competition and earned himself Sh50,000 and Sh500,000 for Mukuru Art Collective.
Alex Mungare, 17, won the Toyota Dream Car competition which won him Sh550,000
“I’m also the youngest artist here at the studio,” he announces proudly. Having joined Masava’s art club when he was 10, Alex had already visited Patrick Mukabi’s Dust Depo when he met Adam whose studio is just down the road from his family home. “Alex shifted to my studio and has been painting there ever since,” says Masava who since 2008 has also been exhibiting his own art everywhere from Austria, Germany, and Netherlands to Taiwan, Slovakia and USA.
Alex isn’t
the only award-winning artist who paints at the Collective. Stephen Ndovu, 30,
just won second prize in the student category at the annual Manjano Art competition.
Two years before, Isaiah Malunga won the Kenya Arts Diary artist’s residency at
Kitengela Glass Trust.
Besides Ann
Mumbi, increasing number of girls are joining the Collective. Amina Martha, 25,
is an amateur boxer who initially went to the gym to lose weight. She was still
at Masinda University, studying journalism at the time.
Amina Martha, boxer and artist member of Mukuru Arts Collective
“One of the
ways we learned to lose weight at the gym was boxing. Once I started it, I
found I really enjoyed it,” says this petite bantam-weight amateur who hopes to
one day represent Kenya in international tournaments. “After I had only trained
two weeks, I entered a competition and lost; but I also won one round,” she
says, now determined to keep training and even coaching other young women on
boxing and self-defense.
While at
that tournament, Amina met Benson Gicharu, the two-time Olympiad boxer who now
coaches kids in boxing and is also a member of Mukuru Art Collective. “George
is the one who told me about the Collective,” Amina says who currently has been
with Masava the last nine months. She’s still boxing but now she’s also
learning how to paint.
One of the
most remarkable stories I heard at the Collective came from James Mutugi, 39, a
convicted felon and former pickpocket who spent 13 years in prison after
getting caught stealing a man’s money and new Nokia phone. He’s been with
Masava for the past year and now finds painting both therapeutic and a means of
earning a living.
James Mutugi, 39, ex-convict has been reformed through art, Member of Mukuru Arts Collective
“I got caught in 2008, but had already been studying animation and graphic design at Shang Tao Media Arts College,” Mutugi says. Poverty is what caught him off-guard, and led to his turning to petty crime to survive. Fortunately, he had already met Sister Mary of Mukuru Art Centre who suggested he meet Masava. His life and his art has only improved since then.
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