Current policies and politics around urban public space & And what happens if the public space turns into a pitch for mobilisation?
How public is the public space? Indeed, what are we, as members of the public, permitted to do in these spaces? This question is both highly political and highly contested. From politicians to policemen, from artists to activists, from planners to policy makers, nobody is without an agenda about what should and should not be allowed in these spaces. Indeed public space can even be defined as a space for open contestation, and thus the distillation of democracy. For this discussion we bring together a cocktail of characters (hopefully not of the molotov variety) to share some perspectives and positions about about politics and policing, the safety and security, the art and the artifice of Nairobi’s public spaces.
thursday 7 p.m at Goethe Insitute

The future of urban public space & development

Town planners and rappers might not seem like the most likely companions but the correlation between art, culture and urban ‘regeneration’ is becoming increasingly obvious in cities around the world. Nevertheless, this is not an unproblematic relationship. It is true that the inclusion  of community groups, local artists and musicians in the creation of an urban identity ultimately leads to a more imaginative and potent urban code emerging. At the same time, this relationship between  artists and city officials is not always an equal one, and there is always the risk that artists are merely being instrumentalised. ‘Even ‘regeneration’ itself has become synonymous with a kind of gentrification, creating ‘beautiful’ neighbourhoods for the middle classes.

Today Maasai Mbili has eight active members, and a group of six promising students/apspirant members closely connected to the core group. In 2003 M2 accquired a space, a two storey structure, originally a pub, and turned it into a studio and a gallery. The centre is situated along Kibera Drive, just After
Ayany Junction, and almost all the M2 activities are focused at Kiberan development, through community interaction.

Maasai Mbili is not yet registred as an organisation. Procedures have started, but is is an issue that has been pushed forward and postponed a number of times, earlier due to heavy workload, recently because of the turbulent post-election period.
However, Maasai Mbili has for years been a strong, independent, active and well-known force of Kibera based community development and has time after time during the years recieved many proofs of popularity and respect, lately by the American Ambassador, who visited the M2 Art Centre to thank for peace-keeping activities during the post-election violence.

When Maasai Mbili was started in 2001 the group was small, and working on the streets. The purpose with M2 was therefore

- to gather likeminded artists and by the strength of the
group improve income and working conditions for the
members and

- increasing the understanding of how Fine Arts and
cultural activities could bring equal strength into the
communities in Kibera.

As soon as M2 got a chance to work from its “own” base, the ideology and objective of the group was extending. The reach-out profile of the group became stronger and the task of promoting culture as tools for development turned into a mission. Hence, M2 has since the start of
Maasai Mibili Arts Centre been focused at nurturing and developing art for both aspiring and young artists in Kibera. One important coordinate in that relation is the government decision to scrap art in primary school, a fact that made M2 extend and put more strength in its workshops with Kiberan children.

Another aim has always been to enable artists to have one voice, through which they could create awareness of the various issues concering the community, i. e. HIV, crime and other social problems. This objective has made M2 tenaously active with community outreach projects, involving the artists and other community members in interactive efforts where Fone Arts has been made the hub and main tool for result.

Among the things M2 has accomplished since start are; A number of community outreach projects, where the most recent (and famous) was the Art4Peace Healing Project, aiming at healing and restoration of peace through art. The project involved worksshops with children, painting of the ruins, printing of Peace T-shirts, a peace focused grafitti effort along Kibera Drive etc.
Other, less well-known M2 efforts are to be found in primary schools around Kibera and at the M2 Art Centre, where a long row of children’s workshops has been held.

Maasai Mbili Art Centre l P.O. Box 54820, 00200 Nairobi, Kenya l phone 0723 618 160 l m2artstudio@yahoo.com l www.Art4Peace.org

Maasai Mbili has also delivered ellaborate Ghetto Art lessons at a number of higher educations.
Except the interactive outreach projects, the M2 members have held a number of exhibitions of more traditional profile as well as workshops around speciefied subjects outside Nairobi, bodymapping seminars in Mehru, Ghetto Art workshops in Mombasa etc.
Maasai Mbili has through the years developed sustainability through the introduction of a 20 percent group commission on individually sold work. This has enabled the group to raise rent money for the studio art funds to supply with material for members and
some youth workshops. No funds are coming to Maasai Mbili from outside…

AM: In the sphere of local contemporary art practice it seems that artists are not engaging with public space, hence the title as a provocation. But if you further interrogate local cultural production, and understand art in public space as the performance of cultural expression in public, than Nairobi is a goldmine.

a.n: What’s provocative about the title, and by the way, do you know the story about the gold of the socialists international? If it would have been found by the capitalists, it would have
turned in their hands, into coal.

AM: Of course the title suggests that art practice in public space does not exist, or is an almost utopian fantasy, but actually this is not the case. It is merely that the local institutions, which incidentally are almost exclusively controlled by foreign interests, do not showcase or represent this form of local art production.

a.n: Maybe, we get later back to the foreign interests, but what is your goal?

AM: Our goal is twofold, to disrupt the current practice of the local art institutions, and shift their focus to recognise a local cultural practice, which is simply not featured. However, neither do we seek simply to celebrate an ‘exotic’ art practice. By including these artists within this space, we also intend to challenge them, and to stimulate within them further questioning of their own practice.

a.n: And the danger that the gold could turn into coal?

AM: Than we crush it into diamonds.

a.n: Ok, can I be a bit polemic about that, and ask you, would you redistribute that diamonds, to the mothers of the people who went missing in that public space in the last two years?

AM: We are very aware of working in an environment, where thousands of young men simply disappear. We don’t think our show can solve that problem. But what our show can do, is to analyse what is permitted in public space, and stimulate an interdisciplinary discourse between artists, activists and theoreticians. So, in answer to your question, the wealth we distribute is the wealth of understanding.

a.n: But you know, I never met more than 30 people at openings here, and even although I’m not living here, I already have the impression that I know most of them.. but maybe I’m wrong.

AM: Well, that is exactly point. The artfield is limited, which is why we hope that this show can create a space for interdisciplinary discourse and cross-pollinate between different fields of knowledge. Regarding the field of Art, the time has long passed when galleries and exhibitions are about looking at well crafted objects. We understand our role as catalysts of ideas, connectors of different thoughts, creators of situations in which viewers themselves create and imagine alternative possibilities to the present.

a.n: I mean, this is not new, and to me sounds like you are simply exporting European avant-garde thought from the 1960’s and planting it in a new field. In fact, is this not simply the latest version of a long history of cultural imperialism? Where is the African in your Maximalism?

AM: (Laughter)… Whilst an accusation of Cultural Imperialism is to some extent valid, ultimately it is short-sighted. It is true that we use tools and strategies gleaned from Contemporary Art discourse, and this discourse does originate in the Global North. But, this is just what they are; tools, which can be abandoned if they don’t work. The last decade of global culture has not proved the theories of Cultural Homogenisation to be correct. People are cultural agents and chose and select from the mainstream of culture. Hiphop may have originated stateside but to see Kenyan hiphop as simply derivative of that culture is to misconceive contemporary culture.

a.n: Well, I’m not sure if I buy this… but I will hold further judgement until I see what you have to offer in the show. Afro Max, it’s been a pleasure.

AM: Karibu. See you on the 13th.

a.n: Alexander Nikolic http://www.eroticunion.org/

AM: African Maximalism