Imagining a Museum of Nairobi
Nairobi’s culture is very diverse and dynamic. What if we found ways to organize and archive evolving culture and it’s different artistic expressions in audio, video, photography, fashion, written word, sculpting, architecture…all the different ways we are expressing ourselves in this new millennium? What if we had a way to archive culture on the internet and what if the archive could update in tandem as culture evolves? There’s so much history of Nairobi that is undocumented and unarchived online (significant political, social and economic changes of the 90s and 2000s for example). For one, Kenya’s history is mostly missing from our digital universe. This is because archives have remained analogue and not been digitized (with the exception of a few projects like Google Arts & Culture and Museum of British Colonialism).
What does this mean for the generation that’s growing up not being aware of or having access to information that’s in the analogue archives? How do they get to watch the documentaries that used to air on TV but that aren’t flowing in the information stream online where young people are hanging out?
Among the many core questions regarding Internet, governance and society, cultural archiving is one that gnaws at me the most. Now is the time to start building what will be the digital institutions of the future. We need to build the bridge between the past and future systems of documenting and organizing our history. After all, our lives online are already part of our collective story.
