Kunsthaus Bregenz presents Nairobi A State of Mind a cooperation with Goethe-Institut Nairobi, Kenya on view 26 October 2012–20 January 2013.
Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, is one of East Africa’s most important economic hubs and seat of numerous international organizations. In recent decades it has also become the center of a dynamic art and cultural scene. Against the backdrop of East Africa’s colonial past and power structures, the artists develop their own views of their surroundings that reflect the complexity and the constant changes that make up Nairobi.
The project in the KUB Arena constructs a picture of Nairobi with reference to the ensemble of relations, temporalities, and spaces that constitute the city’s present and its history.
In his series ‘Nairobi—A Utopia in the Eye of the Beholder’ (2007–2012), Jacob Barua works with the city’s architectural landscape, analyzing by means of photographic documentation the history inscribed in individual buildings. Laura Horelli, in her video work The Terrace (2011), returns to a residential complex where a number of her childhood years were spent. James Muriuki likewise employs the medium of photography, although in his case his gaze is turned on contemporary processes of change and movements in public space—the widespread Matatu minibus culture, for instance, or buildings in the process of construction that mark the current texture of the city as symbols of power, progress, and technology. Observations of their urban surroundings are the starting point for Peterson Kamwathi Waweru’s large-format charcoal drawings as well as the works of Sam Hopkins, Kevo Stero, and the artist group Maasai Mbili. What they all share is reference to a society in which ideas and modes of life are imported and appropriated under the influence of historical and current social movements.
An events program consisting of lectures, artist talks, film screenings, and workshops is an integral part of the presentation.
Naeem Biviji and Bethan Rayner of Studio Propolis will be developing an architecture for the occasion of the KUB Arena exhibition that gives spatial expression to the aspects of the entire project.
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Karl-Tizian-Platz
6900 Bregenz, Austria
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at