Morgan Heritage to launch studio in Nairobi

Fresh off their success at the Grammy Awards, Morgan Heritage reveal that they are working on starting a studio in Nairobi. The reggae royalty won a Grammy for Best Reggae Album. READ MORE: www.the-star.co.ke

Auction highlights growing interest in African art

For the second year in a row, the Kenyan capital was the venue for a unique auction of contemporary African art, in which works by 51 East African artists sold for $200,000 on Monday.

The most expensive piece to come under the hammer was "Women," a painting by Ugandan artist Geoffrey Mukasa, depicting nude women with wide eyes. The work is reminiscent of Picasso's style and sold for $17,500.

read more: latino.foxnews.com

image source: www.tumblr.com/search/Geoffrey+Mukasa

Young designer basks in a New York spotlight

Katungulu Mwendwa knew she wanted to be a fashion designer ever since the day she took the scissors to her mother's wardrobe.

"I think I did that to her wedding evening dress," said the 24-year-old from Nairobi, recalling her childhood. "I'm not sure she was very happy about that one - but here I am in New York, so she can't complain."

In a career breakthrough, Mwendwa was the lone African invited to join the GenArt Fresh Faces in Fashion showcase for up-and-coming designers during the recent New York fashion week. MORE: asiaone.com

Designer Bio: 

Katungulu Mwendwa is a young, enthusiastic, upcoming fashion designer born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. Taking fashion as wearable art, her passion for design enables her to incorporate other art forms that she loves, such as music, writing, handcrafts, and drawing in the development of garments. Ultimately, her deep seated inspiration comes from those traditional cultures, both in Kenya as well the rest of Africa, that are barely touched by modernity. She combines these experiences and inspiration to create an unusual mix that is new and exciting.

Katungulu Mwendwa is aware that Kenya as well as other African cities rapid economic development may lead to the death of its traditional cultures. By referencing these cultures in contemporised designs while promoting her collections as extensions of these cultures, she hopes to popularise and create more awareness of them to safeguard their longevity.

The theme for both her past 2012 A/W and current S/S collection is inspired by the Tuareg (Indigo People), set in a fantasized concept of Northern Africa in the distant future of a post apocalyptic world. The setting for the collection provides a time period when the world would be undergoing recovery. It is a chance for humanity to re-examine the past and opt to do things differently and make things right. Source: www.genart.com/news

Kenya Rising

Can an award-winning Kenyan photojournalist set his camera aside and build a movement to fight political corruption? MORE: aljazeera.com/programmes

Resurgent theatre in Nairobi

Asking whether there has been resurgence in Kenyan theatre in the last few years (or even months) may seem like a no-brainer to anyone who’s been watching the Nairobi cultural scene.

There’s a new stage production opening practically every weekend. Often there can be two or three shows opening simultaneously, one at the Alliance Francaise, another at Kenya National Theatre and a third either at the Professional Centre, at Braeburn School or even at the Louis Leakey Auditorium at Nairobi National Museum.

What’s more, there seems to be new theatre groups cropping up almost every month.

The latest one that I encountered recently was one called Wholesome Entertainment and they were staging an original script entitled The History Box: To Delete or Not to Delete by a relatively new Kenyan playwright called Seth Busolo.


That same weekend in May, another theatre company that was totally new to me opened with a two-header, both by another Kenyan script writer called Walter Sitati.

The group calling itself Hearts of Art premiered in The Ex-Man about a man who addresses the issue of gender equity in a most extraordinary way: he undergoes a form of surgery that until recently was unheard of in Kenya; it’s called ‘sex-reassignment surgery’ which leads to equally extraordinary consequences.

Sitati’s second script also tackles a provocative topic. Unforgiven addresses the subject of rape and how one victim copes with her unwanted child.

The Moi University graduate and his new group seem to reflect a trend that suggest Kenyan theatre is on the move.
 
Then again, the same daring dynamism can be seen in some of the more established theatre groups which have committed themselves to staging at least one production a month.


They include Phoenix Players, which has been consistently keeping up this pace since it reopened early in 2009.

Before that, there had been serious rumours floating around town that Phoenix was on its last legs.

Those rumours were effectively quashed by the ingenious intervention of Nairobi lawyer, Millicent Ogutu, who had vowed to keep the theatre running irrespective of the nay-sayers and inactive Board members whom she felt hadn’t bothered to fight to keep the facility alive.

Once Ogutu took charge of Phoenix, she managed to call back the Players’ long-time stage director George Mungai who instantly went to work resurrecting Phoenix, now as its creative director.

The other two troupes that have played an integral role in keeping theatre fans satisfied with new shows staged regularly at Alliance Francaise are Heartstrings Kenya and the Festival of the Creative Arts.


Both groups have a sizeable — even enviable — fan base. Both have devoted attendants who claim they never miss a show.

They love to be entertained and energised by the type of shows both groups tend to specialise in, namely lively comedies, adventure thrillers and indigenised scripts that come from abroad and get revised and injected with local colour.

Yet as much as one could assume all-of- the-above strongly suggest that Kenyans are witnessing a resurgence of local theatre, not everyone agrees.
read more: www.nation.co.ke/Features/DN2/

Kenyan Artwork Growing in International Popularity

Long overlooked on the international arts scene, Kenya is finally gaining prestige on the world stage. Some artists can now make their living entirely from artwork and collectors are coming from around the world to buy it.

Works by Kenyan artists are exhibited around the globe.  World-class galleries cater to foreigners and other Kenyans.  And the collectors are paying attention.

Born in Kenya, Amyn Abdula now lives in Vancouver.  He has been collecting African art for more than 25 years and has more than 150 pieces.  The majority are from Kenya. Read on at source: Voice of America

James Mwangi hopes to open up banking to the poor

Bankers are often seen as only serving the interests of the rich, especially in the wake of the financial crisis, but Kenya's James Mwangi has managed to transform his company's fortunes while still offering services to the country's large poor population.

Kenya's Equity Building Society was founded in 1984 with the goal of providing mortgage financing to low-income Kenyans.

But poor management and insufficient board supervision, among other factors, contributed to its deterioration and a decade on, the Central Bank of Kenya warned that Equity was on the verge of insolvency.


With the sword of bankruptcy hanging over their heads, in 1994 the building society's board of directors decided it was about time to include independent members in their rank and to recruit externally for managers.

That was when James Mwangi - who had worked with Ernst & Young and Trade Bank, and had been banking with the society for a couple of years - came on board as its finance director.
Read on at source: BBC.co.uk

From King's Road to Kenya: Vivienne Westwood's new fashion journey

British designer's products part of Ethical Fashion Africa, which offers Nairobi's poor a better life.

In a whitewashed building in Nairobi's industrial area, scores of women are sewing handbags for some of fashion's best-known labels. But as their machines clack rhythmically they are also crafting a new future for themselves.

On a table by the open door there is a pile of Vivienne Westwood cloth totes, and the vivid colours of Carmina Campus bags by Ilaria Venturini Fendi spill across a bench.

Nairobi's Hub workshop is the heartbeat of Ethical Fashion Africa, a not-for-profit group created by the International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint UN and World Trade Organisation body, to empower marginalised people by linking them up with fashion houses and distributors.
Read more at source: The Guardian