INTRODUCTION
‘Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus,’ said artist Sol LeWitt in the late 1960s. LeWitt sought to dematerialize art by making it only the vehicle for the transmission of the idea, making its appearance secondary to the idea from which it came. It turns out that Conceptual art has been the impetus LeWitt declared it would be, bridging cultures, faiths and genders through ideas that manifest in some material object, whether that object(s) is transient or lasting.
And more than 40 years later, it was conceptual practice that brought two artists, Megumi Matsubara and Otieno Kota, together from over 6,000 miles apart. Megumi arrived in Nairobi in March 2011, traveling from her native Tokyo. While visiting the Kuona Trust Art Centre, she met Kota. The two artists engaged in conversation and decided to collaborate on an art installation in Nairobi, what realized as the STRA billboard project in Kibera.
Megumi’s art-making practice is like a delicate breeze. She intervenes in space with minimal use of material, and despite this very subtle application, through her lens viewers experience space in an entirely new way. Materiality plays a less critical role than situation in Megumi’s work – the material she works with is simply a vehicle with which her relationship with space is relayed to the viewer.
Meanwhile, Kota’s practice is based on application of texture, color, surface and found materials. In his mixed media paintings, reliefs and installations, narrative and material play an overt role. Kota’s relationship to Nairobi and specifically Kibera, like Megumi’s background in architecture and her Japanese culture, influences his practice, appropriating objects and politics from his immediate surroundings.
In bringing together their two disparate but complementary practices and backgrounds and by engaging one another – as well as resolving the many challenges they came across while organizing a public art project in Kibera – an exciting installation work realized, one in the liberating and contagious spirit of the conceptual art that LeWitt spoke about.
BY MARINA CASHDAN
A CONVERSATION WITH MEGUMI MATSUBARA & KOTA OTIENO moderated by Another Africa
How did the two of you meet and decide to collaborate on this public intervention, STRA?
MM The first time I saw Kota he was sleeping in the backyard of Kuona Trust. I photographed him but he didn’t notice. When we met again later that day, he was weaving a large cloth. I was wearing a striped shirt; he told me that he’d seen my shirt in his dreams. That’s how we started chatting. From there I told him about this white fabric that I had brought from Tokyo; it filled half of my suitcase but I brought it with me. I didn’t know what I would use it for. Well, it was just really easy to begin a conversation through our work.
OK Connected in a way…
MM Very different types of things but somehow connected…
OK You know that piece of cloth the net that Megumi had, it was really a very simple net. No writing, just a simple thing. I just felt that it was really funny that she was insisting that it was a piece of art (laugh). For me, I wasn’t seeing any art in this. But when we hanged it in the studio, the wind would come and it would make some movement. That was when I really started to see, now this piece was something. My pieces are always really detailed. When I do installations, they are really detailed. If Megumi says that that simple net is a piece of art, then what about my detailed installations? It started that way. (laugh)
The installation took place on the highest landmark in Kibera, the only billboard in this part of town. Was it challenging to make a public installation on a landmark that covertly held political importance?
MM It was but I didn’t know that it had political issues and complicated matters before we started negotiating. I started noticing empty billboards in the city, found them interesting and wanted to do something on them. I am interested by things interacting within the public sphere, that is my focus. Kota told me about the one in Kibera so we went to see it and I immediately felt something; especially because of the small piece of cloth I saw at the corner.. Kota’s help was vital to get the necessary permissions. We had to arduously negotiate with the local chief and opinion leaders. Through them we began to understand that things were more complicated than what we had first imagined.
The only billboard located in Nairobi’s largest slum, Kibera. Prior to STRA this billboard had only been successfully once used by Mr. Raila Odinga, the current Prime Minister of Kenya. One other attempt by a corporation was quickly rejected by the local inhabitants.
OK At first I thought it was something easy since the majority of the people in that area knew me. As long as we went through the local chief, I thought there wouldn’t be any problem. It was just funny, we started getting problems. We had to meet them many times but each time, they kept asking us to come back. It reached a point where we said we didn’t have time to look for them everyday and had to move on to find a solution. We had headaches all the time until the last day when we completed everything, each and every day, each and every minute, problems arose.
MM We had a few days until the actual installation began. For all those days, I had no clue if we could complete this piece. The atmosphere throughout was very intense, it was not easy aside from the support of the local artists, Maasai Mbili. I persisted though but even on the morning of the actual installation, I wondered if the project would collapse. At 8am we started hiring boys and they started hanging. By lunch time suddenly there was a huge problem, and they started fighting and we were thrown into chaos. That night we were planning to project images on the textile. It was one more complication to overcome since we needed electricity and security for the machines. There were so many things that could go wrong. Even the people close to us began questioning us. They asked me “why are you hanging a mosquito net?”
OK They wanted it for their bedrooms. (laugh)
Listening to you both now, it sounds surreal even funny, though at the time very intense and exhausting. Can you tell us about the installation itself, how did you choose the objects installed?
MM We were looking for balance, for example in colour and also for usual things. I wanted bananas, Kota wanted baby clothes. I said that baby clothes were too small for the billboard but then I realised it’s very important that they were small. Then curtains…
OK And a doll.
In Kibera, on the eye-level, there are many things hanging and very dense. I thought they would look beautiful if they were up there on the billboard. It was a simple desire. I thought they should be celebrated . — MM
MM And colorful football socks. I wanted to see them up on the billboard. But then later I got to hear the reaction on the things hanging. Somebody said to me ‘why would you put football socks up there? All the boys want them so badly, it’s almost mean to hang them there.’
OK ‘Those are nice clothes. Why should you throw them up there? Why don’t you give it to me?’ we kept hearing people asking for them. It was a very funny environment. People thought one shouldn’t make art with the things that they could use in their daily lives. Megumi got a bunch of bananas and we hung them up. The following day in the evening I passed by this place, I didn’t find any bananas. Everything was there but the bananas were gone (laugh). When we were hanging the bananas there were people saying, ‘maybe everything will survive but not the bananas!’ (laugh) Everything survived. It was a nice project anyway. It was nice and challenging.
MM Even the reaction of the people, the ones who took the bananas. They knew the project so well. I thought that they reacted so elegantly, they were playing with us perfectly..
What challenge(s) did you confront or hope to confront through this project?
MM My plan for the project in Nairobi was to not plan in advance but to let myself scan the city through my feelings and find an action to make. I’m always interested in something that can’t exist without mutuality. Something that appears in the space between you and me, me and others. My challenge is about going somewhere unknown by using the power of the presence of others. Doing something in a public space was not about putting a sculpture in a safe place. It was about interacting with people and creating various dialogues with people through something that I would put up. Since I already knew that I was not going to be there for six months or a year, it was not like I would communicate with everyone in a certain manner. It was like a high-speed simulation of “how we can create memory, history, story”. The challenge was to create something that could be described somewhere between story and history, chance and fate, superstition and event, or illusion and reality… something hanging somewhere in-between.
OK The biggest challenge was to interact with these people we found at the site. That was also in a way… art, just to fight with those people. They enjoyed it though they were resistant.
MM Yes, exactly the fight was part of the project.
The audience, the neighbours, the community were actors in the piece whether they realised it or not.
MM It’s not like I set it all up. It just happened one after another since everything works in a chain reaction. If you make one step, maybe you’re not sure if the things you’re imagining in your head would happen as the next step. But, actually the chance gets much bigger when you make this step verses another step. My decisions are not based on concrete research but based on feelings that you get from things. It’s kind of spiritual but everyone has this ability to read the moments, the situation. I am really interested in this kind of state where things are between describable and indescribable, chance and actual event, for example..
And what surprises did you encounter through this project, positively or negatively; something that you didn’t imagine?
MM That people liked it!
OK And that we managed to complete it.
MM Yes! Those two things. It was almost a surprise for me to go back to Kibera a few days after to hear peoples’ positive comments.
What was the mood like when you went back a few days later?
MM It was good. It was not bad already by the end of the day of installation. In the afternoon, after seeing the clothes floating in the breeze the people became relaxed. When we were showing the images at night, people enjoyed watching them. The imagery were pictures that I had taken whilst visiting Kibera. People saw their local bars and shops, kids saw their friends it was all about family, friends, local life projected in big.
OK After we finished about halfway, I just don’t know how they changed their mood, but at the end of that day they were really happy, at ease.
MM It was like a magic. Maybe someone sprayed some funny liquid… (laugh)
OK Maybe in a way they saw some sense. It’s hard to explain.
It’s interesting that the title of the piece is called STRA, an anagram for the main local daily, The STAR, yet also means ‘story’ in Swahili slang, right? Can we imagine that the people were quiet because there was really experiencing a new story. Their vision was changed, they were seeing something new…
MM You know, after the installation, I heard some of the locals discussing they should hang fish so they could advertise their business. That was so funny.
OK Fish? (laugh) They always disturb me a lot when I go there. They always ask me why we had to bring everything down. And they always tell me we should come back and do more. They feel that the billboard is really empty. Even an artist that lives near there, told me that I should have the courage and install something on that billboard.
It is progressive and uncommon to see something like this on a billboard anywhere, so it’s nice, especially if the work is very strong.
OK Yeah. It was really strong and also ‘strange’. For them it was really strange. Even for me because I’ve never seen a billboard like that. We have several big billboards in Nairobi, but all of them are really neat and formal. It’s only those big companies who go for those billboards. They always want them to be smart to advertise. What we did was really… strange but, then they came to appreciate it afterwards. It was a nice one. We can work on some more to remind them of the past. Maybe the next time they won’t disturb us.
MM Well, but we have to challenge them. If they want to hang fish, we have to be more creative.
OK Maybe I can buy thousands of fish and stitch them together.. A piece of canvas made out of fish, like I stitch my metal.. But then maybe for that they will chop off our heads.. Maybe they’ll fight for the fish and chase us away.. (laugh)
MM Hey, why don’t we make it into a library next time! You go up there and read.
OK (laugh) Let me ask you. How do people go up there? Do they go up still by ropes? Or shall we make stairs?
MM We can make a little elevator. (laugh)
Photos documenting daily life in Kibera, Nairobi
CONTINUES TO PART 2 | Africa Remixed | Two Artists Speak
A candid conversation between Megumi and Kota talking about their collaboration and impact of their meeting, materiality, politics & art and more…
About
Marina Cashdan has been a regular contributor to Frieze, Artinfo, Wallpaper*, British Vogue, Whitewall, Departures, The New York Times T Magazine, The Moment blog, and Interview, among other publications. Most recently she was the executive editor at Modern Painters. She is currently pursuing research grants in the arts and working on various curatorial and book projects.
Megumi Matsubara is a Japanese artist whose practice spans from static architecture to ephemeral situations including installation, sculpture, performance, music and writings. She is a founding member of assistant since 2002.
Otieno Kota is a Kenyan artist based in Nairobi. His works include mixed-media paintings, sculptures and installations. In 2001, he co-founded Maasai Mbili, a Kibera collective and community arts group. Since 2006, having left the collective, Kota’s solo practice explores the potential of discarded materials that when woven create synthesised narratives. In his work, beauty and poetry emerge from the most unexpected places where the multitudes of lived moments accumulate.
Photography by Anthony Wachira, Joe Lukhovi, Yoshinari Nishio, Megumi Matsubara
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