Creating Space: an introduction to Nairobi’s contemporary art ecosystem
No matter how Nairobi expands, space is always a concern.
Even as the centre of the arts in East Africa, finding and retaining adequate space for artists in Kenya’s capital city remains a massive challenge. Despite considerable obstacles, however, a unique kind of ecosystem has taken life in Nairobi’s contemporary arts landscape.
Nairobi's particular cosmopolitanism relates more to its role as a business and transportation hub than it does its arts scene. As the most populous city in Kenya and the wider region, Nairobi’s centrality to the arts is something of an extension of this overall significance. Compared to West or South Africa, the East African art market is much smaller and less prominent. The available art galleries, venues and art schools in Nairobi are extremely limited in number— a situation exacerbated by a lack of governmental support. Infrastructural problems related to housing, education and healthcare more often take up the limited attention and resources of Kenya’s developing economy.
Within the confines of these setbacks, the available physical art spaces in Nairobi have taken on a deeply significant role in furthering the evolution and vibrancy of its creative sector. ‘Space’ occupies both material and abstract realms, as cooperatives, collective practices and networks of artists’ support are interwoven into the function of the city’s dedicated visual arts venues.
A diverse array of destinations and organizations now characterise the Nairobian artistic community.
GoDown Arts Centre
Once operating out of a car repair warehouse, The GoDown Arts Centre was established to address the lack of venue spaces for artists to produce and exhibit their work. Having been a stalwart in the community for nearly twenty years, the Centre is now in the process of expanding its premises to become the “first major public complex for performing and visual arts” since Kenyan independence.
The Centre continues to host artists in residence to foster their training and development from their premises in the Central Business District (CBD) and Kilimani, an affluent residential neighbourhood. Their programming has had a singular impact on the sector, as had their monthly events. The Centre remains open to the public, who are welcome to tour the enclosed artist studios that encircle a courtyard. The set-up also encourages artists to meet and interact, providing a workspace alternative to the isolation of a home or private studio.
One-Off Gallery and Sculpture Garden
Operating along the lines of the more traditional commercial artist agency-gallery model, the One-Off Gallery and Sculpture Garden occupies an idyllic property in the hills of Rosslyn. After more than twenty-five years, the gallery is one of the most established gallery spaces in the region. Originally opened in 1994, owner and curator Carol Lees re-opened the space in 2009 with the closure of the Rahimtulla Museum of Modern Art. Rahimtulla was forced to shutter at the end of its five-year grant funding from the Ford Foundation, highlighting the necessity for a stable gallery space like One-Off. Since then, One-Off now represents artists as a commercial agency both regionally and internationally, having supported the careers of some of Kenya’s best-known artists.
The sculpture garden itself is intended as an extensive display project and is home to more than a hundred indigenous plants over two acres of land. The gallery currently has plans to install a large printing press to provide artists access and to host workshops for students and the wider community.
Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute
Similar commercial galleries like Circle Art Gallery, Noir Gallery and Banana Hill Art Gallery exist to represent artists, though there is a comparative dearth of non-profit exhibition spaces in Nairobi. It was with this need in mind that the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) was founded. Opened in 2020, NCAI follows the familiar conventions of the ‘white cube gallery’, taking up a brightly-lit corner of Rosslyn Riviera Mall. This is, according to curator Mukami Nuria, intentional — NCAI is, by circumstance, the non-profit visual arts space for all of Nairobi.
By taking on the associated responsibilities of exhibition and administration, the team at NCAI allow their artists greater freedom to commit to their practice. NCAI has also undertaken programming outside of the confines of its white walls in the form of NCAI OFFSITE. These events create a platform for a more diverse engagement with Kenyan and international art, partnering with sites like independent cinema Unseen Nairobi and The Gathering, an African artists’ symposium. NCAI also provides artist support in the form of residencies, and the space also functions as an art library, providing educational programs and support to the public.
Book Bunk
And though they may be primarily repositories of literature, libraries in Nairobi have evolved to be vital supporters of the visual arts. The efforts of the Book Bunk Trust in restoring Nairobi’s abandoned libraries have succeeded in transforming their locations in Makadara, Kaoleni and the iconic McMillan Memorial Library in the CBD. This journey was particularly difficult without an existing template for arts organizations to follow when working with the Kenyan government. A long period of survey and outreach took place in each of these outposts before restorations began, in order to adequately address the needs of the surrounding communities.
As co-founder Wanjiru Koinage explains, though Nairobians “do not have the luxury of a well-organized network of art spaces”, by focusing on the community, “[the] books can live in spaces where they can come alive.” By incorporating work from artists from the immediate neighbourhoods, Book Bunk has been able to enrich the experience of its library users, while expanding the audience for artists with otherwise limited resources by providing essential facilities like access to research material, wifi and public bathrooms.
Kuona Artists Collective
The Kuona Artists Collective furthers the imperative of the now-closed Kuona Trust. Established in 1995, the Trust was meant as a network of support for Kenyan artists. This materialised in the running of their venue in Kilimani, which offers studio space for rent at an intentionally affordable rate.
Although the Trust no longer provides administrative support to tenants, the Kuona Artists Collective continues to thrive based on the strength of its network. Kuona is also special in its intention to expose younger artists to their older peers in the hopes of fostering a sense of mentorship and cross-generational collaboration. This continues to impact the wider arts ecosystem — the library at NCAI is also a direct result of their collaboration with the Collective.
A Collective Presence
In addressing disparities in access to space and resources, the collective model proves itself to be invaluable to the arts ecosystem in Nairobi.
In the face of a growing but fragile real estate market, despite endless construction, speculation continues to drive costs higher, making accessible space even more of a luxury. Social media has become a powerful tool for artists to meet, connect and collaborate. Groups like the Instagram-active Kenyan Design Collective were formed to address the barriers of cost of putting on physical events to reach clients and customers by splitting the overhead across its members.
The legacy of colonialism can be felt throughout Kenya in its ongoing economic segregation. Like everything else in the country, this affects black Africans the hardest, leading to a disproportionately low rate of land ownership. Even across the diverse array of destinations outlined in this article, the majority of arts venues in Nairobi are found in higher-income neighbourhoods. Though this may not be intentional, the effects are still exclusionary, creating an environment in which contemporary art caters to an upper-class audience. An ambitious collective, BrushTu, hopes to challenge these disparities. Their studio space in the BuruBuru estate provides a sense of community for their artists while offering open houses and workshops to the public.
The State of the Arts
In-person physical interaction has also become more complicated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Kenya had, by the time of writing, reached a single-digit positivity rate, this obscures barriers to testing and recording that have plagued most nations’ pandemic responses. In the interim, the internet has proved itself even more of a lifeline for artists as events and exhibitions were moved online. However, artists in Nairobi are still physically limited by what is available to make, store and exhibit their work.
When speaking to representatives from each of these various spaces, these same locations would come up repeatedly as examples of prominent and important destinations for contemporary art in Nairobi. Regardless of the democratizing and decentralizing effect of the internet on solidifying artist communities, it is obvious how the physical presence of an art space can and will alter the destiny of the creative sector. As the owner of Circle Art Agency Danda Jarolmek highlights in an interview with Singulart: “to build a community of local collectors, you need to create an environment where people can learn.” The same holds true for the wider arts ecosystem.
Space is a limiting factor. It is also an invaluable resource. This is why serious investment in dedicated arts venues is so crucial for the development and sustainability of any creative economy.
