Your Name Betrays You: An Installation about the invention of tradition and ethnicism

#YourNameBetraysYou Conceptual Art Exhibition

Often times when we look at our ethnic divisions we say a political tool of domination called “Divide and Rule” caused it. However very few of us actually know how this tool was implemented and mastered in Kenya during and after the colonial period. The exhibition will explore the origin of ethnicity using current literature on the invention of culture and tradition. Key texts point at tradition as a purposely-created classification of Africans by missionaries and colonial administrations, much in the same way that a guidebook would be written for birds.
The exhibition will look critically at the words/stereotypes we hold of the “other” – root, development and how we have made it a part of our lives. It will also look at the effect on our future society and will create dialogue around our present perceptions of ethnicism.

The project will be founded upon “The Invention of Tradition” by Terence Ranger, a key text that looks at the creation of tradition in Africa and the application of a static characteristic to tradition and culture and ultimately stereotypes that lead to ethnicism.