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Kuona is reborn as artists collective

Friday November 09 2018
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Ngene Mwaura in his studio at Kuona. PHOTO | FRANK WHALLEY | NMG

By FRANK WHALLEY

The Kuona is dead — long live the Kuona!

Like the fabled phoenix rising from the flames, no sooner did the Kuona Trust Arts Centre run into the sort of self-inflicted financial troubles that had donors demanding their money back than the artists themselves found a solution to their woes.

As the pistol toting Gen George S. Patton once said: “Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”

After an initial whip round to pay an outstanding electricity bill of around $1,000 the artists set to work to save the place.

At one point it was feared the centre would be sold off. Korean and Chinese investors were particularly keen to buy the prime plot for development, as brokers ushered them around the site off Likoni Road, near State House Nairobi.

But then a guardian angel appeared in the sprightly shape of the 93-year-old landowner, Muthoni Likimani.

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The author and activist insisted her site should be saved for the artists and came up with a plan to give them at least a breathing space.

The house at the centre of the compound, used as offices, a library, meeting room and exhibition space by the Trust, was closed to the artists and instead was rented out as offices and a commercial photo gallery that continue to provide a much needed income, while the rest of the site has been left open for the artists and their studios.

The Trust’s seven office staff from director downwards, (or upwards, if you prefer), who had not already either resigned or mysteriously disappeared, were invited to seek employment elsewhere.

The artists were then introduced to the unfamiliar practice of having to sign individual legally binding leases, and pay their monthly rent promptly and directly to the landlady’s agent instead of the Trust management — and face the uncomfortable reality of eviction if they failed to pay, just like the rest of us, in fact.

And finally, instead of being organised by the now non-existent Trust management and its largely absent board of trustees, the artists reinvented themselves as the Kuona Artists Collective, steered by an informal committee of elders — the sculptors Gakunju Kaigwa and Kevin Oduor, the painter Alex Njoroge, who in his previous life was an accountant, and the printmaker and sculptor Dennis Muraguri, who brought matatu madness and the full glory of that artistic oeuvre to our walls.

They are there when needed but do not intrude on the daily lives and work schedules of the 30 or so artists who now make up the Collective.

Spearheading them is the painter and printmaker Ngene Mwaura, newly returned from studying printing in fine arts in Los Angeles. He runs the committee that organises one of the most striking innovations of the Collective — First Saturdays.

These are held on the first Saturday of each month that feature open studios, backed by a mix of exhibitions by invited artists, loud music (very loud music) by live bands, art classes for adults and children, stalls, freshly made food and a variety of other attractions.

They have also become informal must-go opportunities for younger and emerging artists to meet their older and more experienced colleagues.

For instance, last Saturday, visitors included renowned painters Justus Kyalo and Michael Soi, plus many from the Soku, Kobe Trust and Maasai Mbili studios and featured guest artists from the Nafasi (Space) in Dar.

Music came (oh yes, loudly) from the 14+Artists band, also from Dar, while stalls included one by the Brush Tu artists from Buruburu, Nairobi — the estate credited as the birthplace of Sheng — that included, notably, some taut mixed-media figure drawings by Sebawali Soi.

Then among the 30 or so crested cranes, cute women and street scenes from Nafasi in Dar, what stood out for me was a polemical painting by Luta Mwakisopile called New Era/New Government that had the merit of speaking clearly for itself and on behalf of those who feel they are oppressed.

Commented Mwaura: “There’s a new dynamic about this place. We’re very excited about the future and we’re all very optimistic.”

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