In which Don and Wambui Kamiru discuss Wambui’s work with a focus on Wakariru. This is a follow-up to S01 E01; in which Don and Nyambura discussed Wakariru. You can find its transcript here.
Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.
NM: Welcome to a special episode of Corpus where we are joined by contemporary artist Wambui Kamiru in conversation with Don to discuss her recent exhibition Wakariru.
Corpus is a podcast about contemporary visual art in Eastern Africa. You can find us on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever else you listen to your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook – @CorpusPod.
Don Handa (DH): Hey everyone. We hope you enjoyed listening to the first episode, and we’re very lucky to have with us Wambui Kamiru herself, and we’re going to do a brief interview where she’s going to tell us a little bit more about her practice and about this work in particular. So, to start off with, Wambui, can you introduce yourself to the audience and tell us a little bit about your work?
Wambui Kamiru (WK): I am an artist and installation artist and I’ve been practicing for about seven years or so. My first installation was actually Harambee 63. And Sylvia Gichia is the one who spotted that I might want to move away from canvas because, actually, my paintings were not that great. That there were many layers to my paintings, and she thought that it might be better displayed in installation work.
DH: It’s interesting that you mention that because, as we were looking at this work and trying to think about what your work is, just trying to understand how you arrived at this medium… So it’s quite interesting to bring up moving from paintings and seeing those layers of your work and then deciding to work in installation instead. And while Nyambura and I were in your studio, and we were talking about Wakariru while it was in development, you mentioned thinking about your work as being perhaps more than installation, or something other than, or something extra, beyond installation. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that.
WK: Yeah. I’ve had a couple of conversations with installation artists and people who create that type of work and are in that type of world, and the response is always like, maybe I should look for a new name on what to call my sort of work. I rely heavily on experiences. Then, I think maybe my job is not to come up with the name but more to come up with the artwork. And I’m always happy to see people within the work moving things, I count that as part of the artwork itself. For me, the interesting part is to see how people are interacting in a particular space. So, for example, in Wakariru, it was a kariko, which is an outside kitchen, a rural outside kitchen. It was lovely to see people shaking the rice tray, playing with the beans, pretending to light a fire and all of that. Because in some way I don’t… I don’t feel my thoughts are static. And I like to see how people mold those particular thoughts even for me.
DH: The question of interactivity and how people are moving and interacting in the work is interesting because we wondered… I understand that you’re very deliberate in the things that you choose to include in the installation. Everything is there for a particular reason; it alludes to a particular event, a particular relationship or whatever. And we were wondering, as you think about the work, do you think about how to guide people through the space in a sense, without necessarily having arrows telling you, you know, “You need to start and then going this direction.” If there are particular instances in which you’d like people to pay attention or to spend time in particular areas of the work, are there certain things that you do to make that possible?
WK: I like it to be organic. I’m always terrified when I go into a gallery and I find myself moving in the opposite direction of the crowd. And so with my own work, I don’t particularly have a direction which you should move in. And even when I say that, I like to see people interacting with the works, I still put it back to start. Because, as you mentioned earlier, I’m very deliberate with how things are placed and why things are there. Every single thing in my installation has got a reason for why it is in that particular space. And I learned this earlier on when I was a bit careless, I mean, one of my pieces, and when I was asked why it was that way, I had no response and I don’t want to be caught off guard in the same way with my future works. Everything must have a reason to be in a particular place.
DH: So, space is clearly very important to the work; how you think about it,and how you how people experience the work. How did you… What guided the decision to show Wakariru at Rosslyn Riviera?
WK: So, two things. I wanted two types of audiences. Wakariru is… Sorry, Rosslyn Riviera is in the middle of two types of populations. You’ve got the working class Kenyans, which would be people who live in Ruaka and you’ve got middle class, upper class Kenyans who would live in Runda. And I wanted the crisscross, the interaction, because as much as we may have social divisions amongst all of us, there’s some basics is still remain and not as origin, and that is language, and that is how we communicate. It’s the shared history of the Mau Mau independence period.
DH: Okay, that’s… Because we did talk about this. And we talked about how, for example, socio-economic class of people living around that area; how that, sort of, guides, or would impact the way people read their work and what connections people would make with the work.
And perhaps, with regards to people, then maybe we could move now into particular elements in the work, and you could tell us a little bit about some of the people that specifically you’ve invoked in the work. For example, you have these women that you created portraits of, and you set them up in the space and you’ve given their names and you’ve named the work they used to do. And specifically also, mentioned Mukami Kimathi, Dedan Kimathi’s widow, and there’s, I believe, a conversation you had with her, that then contributed to certain aspects of the work.
WK: Yes. So, all of the faces, which are actually faceless, are portraits of women. And the idea is to create some sort of yearbook. So it’s linked to a larger project on the website maumau.co.ke. And the idea with Mukami Kimathi was that she felt history may be forgotten because it is not written and recorded in the way that it should be. And in looking at representations of women when it comes to the Mau Mau war, you find that they are often dismissed as just being food carriers. And the term “just being food carriers” negates what these women specifically did. Because you’d find that a woman… Yes, she took food into the forest, but then inside the basket was the beans – food – and underneath that was a gun, or were letters, were information. And then also women who found themselves in the forest because it can go back to the reserves, because they feared either detention or the harsh life of reserve life ended up being nurses, or cooks and if you became really good, then you became a soldier in you carries a gun.
So, one of the other women featured in the 12 portraits of Mutumia Gatha is a woman called Captain Ruth. And she rose up the ranks to be a captain; actually held a gun and actually used a gun. And then some of the other stories there about what women were doing. Some of them were in detention- there’s one woman who was in Manyani, which is a hardcore prison. And… And then some of the things referred to what happened to these women as an indicator of how harsh the reality was at the time. There was one particular woman whose four month old baby died after she was struck on her back by KAR soldier, and she fell on the baby and crushed the baby.
And by telling these stories, I’m not only talking about the women themselves, but I’m also talking about the society that they lived in, and referring to the situation that they had to maneuver, that was beyond what they had been trained for, what they had ever imagined themselves ever doing. And when we say women as well, we forget some of these young women were between the ages of 14, 15, 16. And you have to ask what would make women then take arms or go into the forest.
DH: Yeah. Some were essentially children.
WK: They’re children, basically children. And it’s, it’s amazing. The response has been amazing as to questions about, “Maybe I should talk to my grandmother,” “Maybe I should talk to my auntie.” Because the reference… The reason the faces are not there is: I did not want people be focused on identifying a particular woman. But I wanted them to think about the women that they know from their rural areas who they have not had a conversation with. And it does not necessarily have to be about Mau Mau, It could be about, just their life story. Because each of those women is like a library, is like a book that talks about a particular time period.
DH: And we were talking about this. Like you’re saying, to call them just food carriers, it elides all the other different work that they did, but also the knowledge that they’d have to have to execute all these different things that we’re doing. In lieu of their faces, you’ve put in maps, and we thought, as we were going through the work, that might also be an allusion to geography and, sort of, the kind of knowledge of the physical space that we’re moving through, and also, I guess, how that tradition that people from that community took to understanding the place; how they’d name the places, what they’d use as landmarks. And that, I think, leads us to the question of language and conversations and how that sort of carries and transmits culture and history. And maybe we could talk about another aspect of the work, which I think is very important. Perhaps for us, actually, we thought it was sort of the thing that really clinched the work, and that’s the two conversations that are going on – one between yourself and your grandmother, and the other with your daughter. So tell us a little bit about that, and beans.
WK: So, Wakariru is actually about the Mau Mau women who fought in the war. But more, most importantly, it’s about the fact that we’re losing language. And with language, we’re losing access to history and access to knowledge. So there’s two conversations that happen in the kariko: recording between me and my grandmother – in Kikuyu – and we’re discussing the names of beans. In naming these beans then you get to know what the bean does, and what fascinates me is that the language itself – for me, it’s Kikuyu – and there are other ethnic groups that have identifiers. But for… For the fact that in Kikuyu you could identify a bean, I mean, just shows the breadth of the knowledge that was… that is held within the language. So we’re having a conversation between me and my grandmother then at some point, she says, “I can’t remember what this one is called,” And I think that describes our current situation. “I can’t remember what this one is called” means we have lost that particular aspect, that access.
DH: That understanding of that thing is gone.
WK: That access, right. And then… That language… The conversation is then had between myself and my daughter, in English, and I am acting as my grandmother and she is acting as me in this particular conversation, and then they overlay. And, the idea being that even as I translate these words to her, I don’t have the English words to say, for example, mweta mania, and gethara, and gituru.
DH: These, I imagine, are, sort of, some of the names of the beans that come up in the conversation.
WK: Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, these are the names of the specific beans based on their color, shape and size. And my daughter’s questions are questions that I imagine would be asked of me when my grandchildren come into play. And then the one person that’s missing from this conversation, the one generation that’s missing is my mother. And its strategic because that particular generation had just… was born right after, or during independence, and they… The goal of… They’re parents’ goal was for them to get as far as possible from the experience that they had. So they were drawn to Western understandings.
DH: Perhaps even pushed towards that.
WK: Exactly. Get a job, travel the world, and forget the language. And so some of the knowledge is missed, because it would have been that I would have gotten the knowledge from my grandmother to pass on to my grandchildren. My mother would have gotten the knowledge from her… great grandfather, from my great grandmother, and pass it on to her grandchildren, but it hasn’t been the case.
And so the conversation that is happening in the kariko is within a confined space which I particularly find to be a feminist space. Being that the kariko is not a place where men necessarily feel very welcome. But then, women of all ages sit and discuss what’s happening in society, what’s happening in their families and they organized within this particular space. And I found it interesting to place that because I had my grandmother’s presence – her voice without her presence, her physical, physical body – and that kind of drew people to imagine their own experiences and remember their own experiences in such a space.
DH: And I think quite a few of us would be able to think about… would be able to imagine – those of us are fortunate enough – having a conversation with your grandmother in the outside kitchen.
WK: Those of you who are fortunate.
DH: Yeah
WK: That’s the key thing, ‘cause I also find that lots of people haven’t had that opportunity. And it’s heartbreaking.
DH: It is. It is… Yeah. And people… I think… Obviously, you’re delving into history with your work – with this work in particular, but I think also the other earlier works that I have experienced of yours. So there’s a lot of research that’s going into this work. There’s a lot of different things that you’re looking at to try and sort of understand and see yourself in this work. But then it seems to me that when… In the final form – the iteration that we get to see of the installation – it returns to people and their relationship and how they see themselves within that history. Could you perhaps tell us a little bit about – more – and how you choose to foreground-… why you choose to focus on individuals and their relationships more so than laying out data and allowing people to try and trace relationships, systems or whatever.
WK: I think I…. I love people watching. And I love seeing how people act within spaces that remind them of particular things or that bring particular experiences to might. And so,
I could go the research route and presented as data but that’s boring; you’ve already seen that. Or I could force you to experience it in a way that means, that will remain in your memory. I am particularly interested in memory and how we remember things. And while history is an aspect or vessel through which I travel to, or through memory, the remembrance of things, the remembering, putting together, of experiences, thoughts, decisions – that’s what actually interests me. And so most of my work is about how we remember things.
DH: There’s a kind of excavation, in a sense, in the work.
WK: And don’t call me an archaeologist, or… I lean more toward being a historian.
DH: That’s funny. The phrase ‘an archaeology of the present’ came up at some point
WK: Ah, yes….
DH: About the work. Now, you’re preparing an installation, you’re thinking about the different things you’re going to include and what they’re supposed to do. While Nyambura and I were sitting in that space and sort of trying to understand the work… It’s one thing to have seen it, to have talked to you in studio while you’re developing the work, but then to be in the room – and one of the things that struck us was, in an initial conversation, the kariko was supposed to be closed and people are supposed to, I guess, listen through the window, but then when the work was shown at Rosslyn Riviera, you chose to leave it open and you created a space for people to come in. What guided that decision?
WK: The initial thing had been that you stand and you overhear the conversation. And then once we started to build the kariko, I realized that I would be excluding people from what’s happening inside that space, instead of opening it up for all its purpose. That space is about knowledge. And by closing the door what I would have been doing is saying to people that you’re not allowed to access this knowledge, and that would have gone contra- what I was trying to do with the installation in the first place.
It takes about a year or two to develop some thought around the work. And, actually, the execution part of it is usually the easiest part of it. And like, the way a painter would find that a particular color is not coming out in the that they want it to come out because, you know, the temperature or the humidity or whatever is determining that particular pigment, with installation work, once you start to put it up certain things become obvious and apparent. And the placement of objects is not necessarily how you see it in your mind, but more in how it should be presented. So that’s what I mean when I say that the material doesn’t always act how you imagined it would act.
DH: Yeah. And your materials, in this case, are actually not, sort of things that you’re creating, but things that exist – putting them together in certain ways, presenting them, changing their context in one way or another, but then making them so that they enable people to move into a certain mental-psychological-historical space or moment.
WK: Yes, it could be that I’m a hoarder, actually, as I turned
DH: I think you are. I still remember those boxes of kabambes stacked up in that garage. I still remember.
WK: I find everyday objects interesting. I like to look at the shapes of things, the colors of things, how they bend with light, what they evoke mentally and emotionally, the texture of the material. And so I like everyday objects. I think everyday objects can tell more than one story. A panga for example, is – this would be a machete for those people… Exactly. Even the naming…
DH: A panga. A machete. A cutlass, if you’re watching a Naija movie
WK: Exactly. Even the naming of it actually determines the context. So, a panga has a different feel if it is stuck in the soil in a shamba; it has a different feel if it is stuck in a corpse; it has a very different feel if it is stuck on the side of a kariko. So the panga in the shamba is in the middle of work; the panga in a corpse is in the middle of work, the war type of work; the panga on the side of a kariko is in the process of preparation to go to work. So I like everyday things because I they tell stories.
DH: In relation to this work in particular, but you practice in general, how much work do you feel you as an artist, or do you try to do or not do in terms of, perhaps, let me say narrating the work? I’m thinking in terms of wall text, I’m thinking in terms of labeling and so on and so forth. How much influence do you try and put over that, in terms of telling people what the work is about? Or, do you think that’s something that you need to do as an artist?
WK: Wow, what a loaded question. ‘Cause actually, that is my biggest struggle, and that’s why it takes a year or two to actually have the work become real. Because it’s a matter of clearing out what is excess, what can be inferred by the viewer, and what I actually need to drive the viewer to see.
DH: Yeah
WK: I don’t like wall text. And in the past, I haven’t actually had a large amount of text in my work. For Wakariru I did break it down, only because I did not want the experience to just be that, “Oh, there’s a kariko in the middle of a gallery!” “There’s another structure within another structure.” I wanted to go beyond that.
But I have to admit that even with Wakariru there was a bit of a betrayal to what it is that I believe should happen when you walk into an installation. I think if you walk into an installation, you talk to any person in that space, the validity of the work becomes: can the person in maybe three or four sentences describe at least one idea that you had in your mind? If they described none of the ideas that you had in your mind, I think they missed the point. And then I think that’s a failure. In my opinion of my work, for me, I count that as a failure.
DH: I think you’ve actually, sort of, preempted the question that I wanted to wrap up with, because I do remember Nyambura and I having this conversation and wondering about how much work the wall of text did in this space. And thinking, “is it possible that perhaps those almost, sort of, like, too much guidance?” And in that, in that way, it might have limited how whoever was experiencing the work would have thought about it. But then, I guess now I can’t ask ‘cause you’ve answered it. What… How do you measure the success of your work? For those coming in now, you’ll just have to skip back a few seconds and you’ll find the answer for this question.
WK: I think the measure the measure for the success of my work is that I got a lot more, personally, as an artist experiencing the audience within the work. I got a lot more back that allowed me to see the work differently. Or, that people had things that were in addition to what it is that I was saying. And I think the most inspiring part about it all is that it actually achieved what I wanted to achieve, which is a prompt to go back to where you’re from, take your phone, and record the voices of people. Transcribe it if you can.
DH: You’re speaking Nyambura’s language; citizen archivist
WK: Citizen archivist. ‘Cause I think… You know, people were saying, “You should do more, you should go to this area, that area.” And I said, “I am only one person. I can’t do it by myself.” This is something that we all have to do because histories are built on accounts – in diaries, little notes scribbled – and I don’t think we do enough as a collective society in recording those bits, those notes, those diary entries, because there will be a point where there’ll be people want to find out what happened in a particular period of time, and the only references will be newspapers. We’re kind of lucky now in the time that we’re in because people use podcasts, Twitter, Facebook. But then how much of it is going to be true? Because it’s a representation of what they want to represent, of themselves.
DH: Yeah.
WK: It’s not a true image of what they actually are.
DH: And it’s not as multiple as the reality is as well.
WK: Right. And so, there’s a term that I like to use: ‘online disidentity. So it’s not online mis-identity, it’s online dis-identity, in that people separate themselves from what they present online. And that’s, you know, that’s something for another show at some point. But it’s scary to think that our history, looking down maybe 10, 15 years from now, the recording of it may very well be based on fake news.
DH: Yeah.
WK: So I want people to go back home, take your phone out, ask a woman – an older woman – ask her, you know, “tell me about your school life,” or “tell me the first time you ever went into Nairobi town,” and get that. Just write it, you know. Collect it, because eventually somebody will come back and ask for all those materials.
DH: Yeah.
DH: So… Final, final question, I promise. At the top, you talked about this historical project that you’re working on and following those conversations with Mukami Kimathi. Could you tell us a little bit about what that project is and where anyone who’d be interested could find out more information, and perhaps even contribute to that?
WK: So in looking at Mau Mau, in that period of time, I came across the fact that it wasn’t just Kikuyus who was central to the war. Despite what politicians would like us to believe, this is a war that involved a whole lot of other communities. And so I was lucky to work with the Mukami Kimathi Foundation, through Mukami’s daughter, Evelyn Wanjugu. And we have been to different parts of Nairobi, sorry, different parts of Kenya. We started with central Kenya and went specifically to Murang’a, and there I was able to talk to a few of the women, and we also went to Nyeri. Now the foundation works in Turkana, it works in Kisumu, it works along the coast as well.
And maumau.co.ke; the birth of that was the idea that we don’t have pictures of those people who we say fought in the war. If you think of who fought in the war, you can come up with maybe two or three. But it was a movement. It was an actual movement. And so the yearbook is meant to collect images of people as they are now because those old images are lost, and just have a few details so that maybe we can begin to piece together what happened to the country in that period of time.
DH: Okay. Thank you very much humbly for taking the time.
WK: Thank you
DH: Hopefully we’ll have you again in a future episode to talk more about ‘online dis-identity’.
WK: Yes, that would be fantastic. I’m currently studying that through social media.
DH: Great, good. So that’s something to look forward to. Guys, remember to check out the show notes will try and pack as much stuff down there as we can that we couldn’t put in the recording.
WK: And, continue doing what you’re doing. I mean, it’s really important to know that somehow this is going to also be kept for future archives when it comes to art in Kenya and East Africa.
Resources
- Cua Cua (Series 2): Wakariru, 2019 (this video is projected onto the outside walls of the Kariko in the installation).
- Presentation by Wambui Wamae Kamiru, Fellow Sommerakademie Zentrum Paul Klee
- Recollecting Memory and Saving Language
- Mau Mau women Story Told in Faceless Portraits
- An ongoing project to document and archive the faces and in part the stories of Kenya’s Mau Mau fighters
- How Zimbabwean Women Achieved their Struggles for Independence through Resistance Songs
- We Have No Bananas: Can Scientists Defeat a Devastating Blight?
- On Love Language and Lizards
- The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994
- Jalada 04: the Language Issue
(c)o(r)pus 