#Harambee63 An Experimental Installation

#Harambee63 –  A Project about African Revolutions and the Price of Independence

The project calls into question ideas we hold about our individual roles and capacities in times where bravery and action is required. All so-called revolutionaries are ordinary people but these ordinary people changed the world. By taking something as ordinary as gumboots, which have a history in war, I would like to show that we all have the capacity to change the world even as we are ordinary. I want to focus on Africa because it is considered the “hopeless” continent yet, ordinary people with ordinary means brought about independence. In the same way, ordinary people are also locked in cyclical wars. There is little distance between a guerrilla soldier and a student for example.

The project will raise questions about whom we consider revolutionaries touching on Africa’s vast history from Gandhi and Shaka to modern day “heroes” in Kenya – political or non-political.

The exhibition is both mildly interactive with a deeper layer of internal participation.

#Harambee63 – The Hashtag

As I have been collecting data for the subjects for the pieces, I have found a lot about our continent, that I believe we need to know especially in this period of time as we Kenyans begin to place our independence in the greater global fight for “Coloured” people’s rights. The recent ruling on the “Mau Mau” compensation case, opens a new chapter on the recognition of violations against “coloured” people by former colonial nations.

For Kenya, I would like the discussion to delve into the layers of colonialism and post colonialism. We need to find the faces that are part of our history in order to understand it.

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#Harambee63 opens at Kuona Trust in September 2013.