Section1: Technical
… a whole new breed of young creatives …
In its first year of inception, Kuona Trust, based at the Nairobi Museum, managed to do what other institutions that were culture related had miserably failed to do: to be in a position to offer the Kenyan and East African art scene a whole new breed of young creatives.
My own personal take on it is that in the late 80s and early 90s, the Kenyan art scene was firmly situated in the capital city, Nairobi, and its vibrancy was influenced by the market which was at that time provided by expatriates and tourists visiting the country. The lack of formal education in the arts and curatorship did not aid the development of art in Kenya at this time because we were living in an era where the“ greatest” artist was one who sold loads of work. Gallery Watatu was then the only semblance of an organised commercial gallery in Nairobi, but had a strict policy on who they represented, and what has come to be known as the second generation of Kenyan artists was absent from that list.
Early days at Kuona were interesting because a lot of the young artists who found themselves at the place back then did not really know what to do with it. It was a hall with a
table and a lot of white clean walls that confused aspiring artists because Kenyan artists were supposed to be untidy, messy and got away with everything. I got to this space in April 1996.
Kuona Trust, as Rob Burnet(‘ de Nero’) would later tell us, was a place where young and upcoming artists from Nairobi and its environs would be given space to work and interact with fellow artists. Who needed space anyway? We were there to make art and sell art,
3