Kenya

One of Kenya's video art pioneers
By Jimmy Ogonga

Sometime during August 2002, the Nairobi Arts Trust signed a collaboration protocol with the European satellite of the Centre for Contemporary Art of Africa (Camouflage) in Brussels, Belgium. The initiative gradually spawned partnership not only between the two organizations, but also with other affiliated partner organizations in Africa, whose express mandate is to further development of African Art within the continent and the diaspora. To provide the new affiliation with meaningful impetus, Nairobi Arts Trust working in conjunction with Angolan artist, Fernando Alvim (Camouflage) immediately began planning for a series of events.

But the underlying purpose was to consistently connect African artists working in Africa with those plying their art in the Diaspora, though primary intention was pegged on creation of credible ventures, ideas and setting up professional standards of brilliance in the execution of these projects. One of the names that kept popping up repeatedly in countless emails or telephone calls between Nairobi and Brussels was Ingrid Mwangi, a talented video artist resident and working in Ludwigshafen in the Rhein, Germany. Over the years, she carved her own niche as an innovative video and new media artist on the international circuit.

pioneering video media art 
 

On Fernando’s urging, while on a personal visit to Kenya during February 2003, Ingrid visited Nairobi Arts Trust, then based at the National Museum of Kenya premises. The visit also resulted in the presentation of her work to the museum’s curators, followed by the first solo show in Kenya and a subsequent pioneering video art exhibition at the Godown Arts Centre. Since then, Ingrid has visited Nairobi more regularly, presented talks, facilitated workshops, participated in related initiatives, planned for events and worked on personal projects. Whereas most artists who emerged from the African scene beginning the 1980’s to 90’s were mainly self taught, Ingrid belongs to the generation of those who went through art school. And then managed to break free from the limiting conventions of formalized schooling, having attained the crucial yet elusive point where one is no longer a fugitive of training.

Her fledging career was consequently molded by her own life’s experiences, while still maintaining a spirit of adventure, and a high level of self identity that also prescribed a sense of responsibility in her creations. Ingrid’s array of work inclusive – video art, installations, performances or sound compositions – are often described as personal memoirs constructed within the course of her life. She uses her body and voice to create pieces that interrogate intercultural social and political transactions as discovered through her self-replicated African and European background.

Born in Nairobi in 1975, Ingrid Njeri’s father, Steve Mwangi was then a senior Kenya Army officer (and much later became mayor of the capital city, Nairobi). Her mother, Marga Mwangi, came to Kenya during the early 1960’s, just before independence – and settled down in marriage shortly thereafter. Ingrid attended Consolata and Braeburn primary schools in Nairobi, but relocated to Germany when she was 15 years old. She enrolled at the University of Fine Arts Saar, Saarbrücken in 1994, studied graphic design for two years, and new artistic media for four years. Ingrid would later meet Robert Hutter, a fellow artist with whom she collaborated with in numerous video art and digital photography projects before they got married. 
 

A noteworthy component of Ingrid’s distinctiveness and inspiration lies in her parentage; she is certainly African as her family name and paternal roots attest. Yet she is also as much European, thanks to her mum’s lineage, which is symbolic of the “camp of conquerors”. From the perspective of her dad’s heritage, she belongs to “the wretched of the earth”. Perhaps more significantly, she suffers the ‘curse’ (or is it dilemma) of being white in Africa and black in Europe, but claims both heritages with equal dynamism and passion. Her skin is therefore a screen, a reference point and a metaphor – no doubt the reason why Ingrid’s first choice for artistic medium was video and photography performance; and the preferred subject: her body and self.

dispels cultural stereotypes

As theorist Simon Njami puts it; “…her (Ingrid’s) dual belonging is not only symbolic, but physical as well. It runs through her veins and is read on her body. And that richness, which makes her both from here and there, creates fragility in her, a prism through which she tries to see herself and see the world". Her work has earned acclaim for critically setting the tone for contemporary art’s exploration of social and private identities. The use of her body as imagery effectively complemented by her voice projections – is often regarded as being a composed but uncontrollable force unleashed on a disengaged and unsuspecting audience. And like the proverbial voice from the wilderness, her work stands out as testimony of a single brilliant and eloquent ‘outsider’ yet ‘insider’ – who with equal confidence, relates the brutality, suffering and neglect that characterizes the lives of so many unacknowledged others.

She persistently also confronts and dispels cultural stereotypes of what the authentic should be and in the same process, engages her audience in an exercise of submersion, re-emergence and reconstruction as possible means of finding ourselves. Ingrid returns to Nairobi for the fifth time in three years, to facilitate a ten-day video art workshop at the Godown Arts Centre. This project culminates in the 'Video Installations' exhibition opening on 30th November 2005 at the Goethe Institut auditorium. The show ending on 3rd December 2005 will combine varied works created by different artists during the workshop, which ideally is a follow up to a series of creative 'brain-stormings' she has  participated in and also facilitated in Nairobi.

The objective of the current and previous workshops is to offer Kenyan artists an alternative medium for expression, the knowledge of manipulating the medium for expressive purposes; to create tangible links between African artists in the Diaspora and Africa, and access to international audiences and art markets.

images credit: Robert Hutter Ingrid Mwangi

to view more creations log on http://www.ingridmwangi.de

Jimmy Ogonga is an artist and freelance writer. In 2002, he founded Nairobi Arts Trust / Centre of Contemporary Art of East Africa (CCAEA), an organization that develops initiatives and acts as a catalyst for contemporay art.

© AfricanColours 2005.

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