Kuona Trust:
Section1: Technical
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Kuona Trust:
Why, Where, When & How
An interview of the founder, Rob by the current Director, Danda
Danda: Where to begin? At the beginning... how did Kuona get started? Rob: It was around the time I got to know Wendy Karmali, who was running the art gallery at the Nairobi Museum. She had got the Museum to lend her an old empty building in the grounds- Ainsworth House, it used to say on the key ring. I believe Ainsworth was the colonial Provincial Commissioner for Nairobi.
When we got there it was more or less abandoned; there were a couple of rooms at the back occasionally used by a group of University lecturers, but it was basically an abandoned space. There were rooms with doors locked- nobody really knew what was inside, and some of the ceilings were hanging down.
Wendy had managed to get the Director of the Museum to lend her that building for workshops. So we held two or three workshops in that space- Theresa Musoke taught one; there was a great guy called Philip, his company was called Franex Studios and he did most of the framing for the museum art gallery( he was a lovely guy who died of HIV
Aids subsequently), he came and did a workshop on framing and stretching canvases.
Wendy and I then tried to see whether we could use the building full time. We went to see the museum director, Dr Isahakia( who is now the Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’ s Office, a very powerful guy) and he was interested. We had got our hands on a copy of the master plan for the National Museum which said in their mission statement that the Museum should pay attention to contemporary culture, but obviously they weren’ t doing much in contemporary culture which they had to acknowledge. So we said“ We have done a couple of workshops, there will be an article in the Nation, it will be good publicity for you and won’ t cost you anything. Why don’ t you let us keep the key and we will try and do more there?” And he agreed- no loss, no risk.
Danda: Was it straight away or did it take a couple of months? Rob: No, he decided almost immediately after consultation, but I remember it being a nervewracking meeting to see whether he would agree and we had to come with the evidence that we had actually done these things.
Danda: What happened next? Rob: We had the key, but we hadn’ t got a