Posted 28 Dec 14
By Design Indaba
Architecture & Interiors • Film & Animation • Industrial Design
RoundUp / Focus On
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Wangechi Mutu
This Kenyan artist, now based in Brooklyn, New York, has gained growing recognition in the international art world for her collages and installations that question the West's perceptions of African women. Here we interview Mutu about her first animated video piece, “The End of Eating Everything”, based on her "Tumour" series of collages. It depicts a Medusa-headed planet (played by musician and fellow New Yorker Santigold) moving across a sick-looking sky consuming everything in its wake. The video is a rich and haunting mythical mash-up of the beautiful and the grotesque. Listen to Mutu's insights into the piece here.
Studio Propolis
The husband and wife behind this Nairobi-based architecture and design studio are Naeem Biviji and Bethan Rayner. Biviji, Kenyan by birth, studied architecture in the UK, where he met Rayner. The couple set up their studio in Nairobi, whose nascent design culture suits their fervently do-it-yourself ethos. They make bespoke interior furnishings of remarkable quality and work on select small-scale architectural projects. Read our profile of the studio here.
Kato Change and Lisa Odour-Noah
Together with his band, The Change Quartet, Kenyan guitarist Kato Change has toured New York, Addis Ababa, Rwanda and South Africa, stealing hearts along the way and sharing a bill with greats such as Fally Ipupa, Sean Kuti and Salif Keita. He fuse his sound here with Kenyan vocalist Lisa Oduor-Noah, enchanting vocal range has attracted growing acclaim. This track, "Aparo", sung in English and Luo (a Kenyan dialect), is a warm and balmy collaboration perfect for long summer days. Listen here.
iHub
If you want to know what’s happening in the digital and tech space in Kenya, pay a visit to the iHub in Nairobi which has become “ground zero” for digital innovation in East Africa. The iHub founders take us on a tour here.
