MyWeku

Columnist: Gor Soudan

“Something is happening in Nairobi”

Series Examining Contemporary Art Institutions in Nairobi

Hurlinghum’s green and bloom somehow manages to conceal the hustle of diplomatic missions, international NGOs, a media house, and a heap of other enterprises. These have found the relative calm of this Nairobi suburb invaluable, bearing in mind that a 10 minute drive gets you right into the mindless comedy of the CBD. One organization with a profile that does not exactly blend in with the rest moved into the neighborhood, barely a year ago, just a kilometer or so down the road from the presidential State-house. A two storey colonial bungalow sitting on green grass became the new home of Kuona Trust Centre for Visual Arts, and its odd band. Initiated in 1995 to harness talent seeping through gaping inadequacies of the existing art infrastructure in the region, and to catalyze the admission of art into mass audience psyche- Kuona has done, and continues to do just that.

At the beginning, Kuona’s home was at the National Museum of Kenya where its operational concept brought together artists of different grades to share resource and ideas as they labored, side by side, to create and to awe. In so many ways, the Kuona initiative indicated a new era for contemporary artists in the country. It ushered the new league- the Center’s alumni reads like spot the who-is-who of the present art scene; it is at the Kuona studios where instigators like CCEA’s Jimmy Ogonga, African Colors’ Maggie Otieno cut their teeth at one time or another, even as prolific creators such as Peterson Kamwathi and Otieno Kota continue to toil in the center’s studios, forging an easy camaraderie among its alumni. Possibly, this is what has made the Kuona set-up so crucial to the development of visual arts in Kenya. A great majority of practicing Kenyan artists having gone through the Kuona program of activities has (by design?) produced a cohesive network of professionals with a keen understanding of the difficult context within which the art industry is slowly being unraveled.

From the very beginning, Kuona’s shared set up, where old and young, established and emerging artists converge daily to generate art in a competitive, mentoring environment has worked as semi-formal learning process. The center can be credited with being consistently proactive in addressing the inconsistencies of a barely existent educational infrastructure in the visual arts- it does this through regular workshops and sustained outreach programs. Cross border knowledge and skill propagation through an active residency program has broadened the scope of the Kuona artist. This has seen many artists come, stay, create and share at the center for long periods. Some of the more recent residents were Joy Gregory of the UK, and Kathryn Racz of Switzerland.

Naturally, the center has had its share of problems. It went through a tumultuous period which saw it move from its birth place at the National Museum of Kenya, to the GoDown Art Centre and finally to Hurlinghum’s colonial bungalow on green grass. However Kuona has taken all its upheavals in stride, and appears determined to carry out its mandate. Indeed, this pioneering organization’s story is intimately tied to the unfolding history of contemporary arts in Kenya.