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"BOMBE – Les graffeurs kényans contre la corruption"

Published23 Mar 2012

Tags arte pública quénia


Deux heures du matin, dans une rue en plein cœur de Nairobi, la capitale du Kenya. Un générateur d'électricité portable, des bombes aérosol, un mur vierge, Boniface Mwangi et son crew de graffeurs sont prêts à entrer en action.

Quelques dizaines de minutes plus tard, la façade est recouverte d'un immense graffiti représentant un homme politique à tête de vautour. Confortablement installé dans un fauteuil, il sourit. Dans une bulle : "Je suis un leader tribal. Ils pillent, violent et tuent en mon nom. Je vole leurs impôts et m'accaparent leurs terres mais ces imbéciles vont encore voter pour moi." La semaine dernière, toute l'équipe a passé la nuit à taguer les rues de la capitale : "Voter pour éjecter les vautours du Parlement" est apparue en swahili, la langue nationale avec l'anglais, sur plus de 40 carrefours de la ville.

Continuar a ler no Le Monde.

Wangari Maathai (1940-2011)

(Portrait by Martin Row)

It’s time to pause and recall the life and spirit of Wangari Maathai, who died of cancer Sunday in a Nairobi hospital. Here’s her Times obituary, by Jeffrey Gettleman, our Nairobi bureau chief.

Maathai is best known for creating the Green Belt Movement, which has planted tens of millions of trees around Kenya, but she also personified a positive strain of environmentalism that stands out in a world where “woe is me” messages dominate. Click on the video clip above for a sample.

Her work centered on improving the lives of women, building a sustainable relationship between people and the land and education. Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her efforts. I encourage you to read the defense of her prize, which was criticized by some, from Anna Lappé and Frances Moore Lappé of the Small Planet Institute. Here’s a snippet:

Maathai’s genius is in recognizing the interrelation of local and global problems, and the fact that they can only be addressed when citizens find the voice and courage to act. Maathai saw in the Green Belt Movement both a good in itself, and a way in which women could discover they were not powerless in the face of autocratic husbands, village chiefs and a ruthless president. Through creating their own tree nurseries – at least 6,000 throughout Kenya – and planting trees, women began to control the supply of their own firewood, an enormous power shift that also freed up time for other pursuits.

Para continuar a ler a notícia no New York Times, basta clicar aqui.

a partir do Quénia: publicações, eventos, formações e redes

Published26 Jul 2011

Tags literatura quénia

 

Fundada em 2003, a Kwani Trust é uma rede queniana centrada na actividade literária com o propósito de desenvolver escrita criativa de qualidade e empenhada no crescimento da indústria criativa através da publicação e distribuição da literatura contemporânea africana, oferecendo também oportunidades de formação, produção de eventos literários, assim como o estabelecimento e manutenção de redes literárias globais. Pretendem "contribuir para uma sociedade que usa as suas histórias para se ver a si própria de um modo mais coerente".

Ler mais aqui.

Algo está a mudar em Nairobi

Published22 Mar 2010

Tags África artes visuais nairobi quénia

Something is happening in Nairobi-something has been roused. There are whispers of audio installations and sightings of video art; conversation on contemporary art is reaching crescendo, and the vocabulary can match that from any scene in the globe. The past decade and a half has seen a painstaking, determined paradigm shift in visual arts in Nairobi, Eastern Africa’s largest city. A crop of young, prolific contemporary artists, like Peterson Kamwathi and Ato Malinda are adamantly soldiering on, where behemoths like Katarikawe and Wadu stumbled. Often, they can be found at the loft of the Nairobi Arts Trust, engaging on topics about the global art scene and one can quickly sense how small the world has become- they are in constant touch with the cultural metro-politic across Africa and abroad.

Continuar a ler, aqui