Photo by Rosalie van Deursen
Shabu Mwangi
Shabu Mwangi was born in 1985 and began practicing art in 2003. He lives and works in Mukuru, an informal settlement in Nairobi, where he established the Wajukuu Art Project in 2013 with a deep conviction that his work could highlight the lives of the disadvantaged minorities in his community. Deeply concerned by society’s inequality and our lack of empathy for people with different social, political, ethnic and religious beliefs, his work seeks to examine human behaviour and our collective amnesia. His inspiration comes from the view that inequities and frustration deeply affect the greater society as well as the belief that actions taken during this highly sensitive political time can give individuals insight about their own identity; how they are influenced politically and how they are divided culturally and socially.
In his work, Shabu strives to examine the human behavior and interaction with each-other and what really drives us to a point of losing the sense of oneness and reaching a point where more focus is always on our ego. He continuously reflects on the quest as a human being: the acceptance of our condition and at the same time the view that we are forgetful, a kind of collective amnesia; “that is why I say wealth will never describe a rich man, or poverty a poor man, in the eyes of a deeper observer”.
Shabu Mwangi’s practice focuses on the structural and historical violence inflicted on citizens, conditions of statelessness and national misidentification. Mwangi’s disquieting mixed media compositions are especially concerned with public readings of migration, as well as its psychological consequences. His work offers insights onto societal and cultural fissures that hinder national cohesion.
A self-taught artist, Mwangi has taken part in workshops and residency programs both locally and internationally. In 2013, he set up the Wajukuu Art Project, a community-based arts organization to support and train young artists in Mukuru, an informal settlement in Nairobi. In 2017, he completed an artist residency at S27 Kunst und Bildung, Berlin.
He has worked with art2be and Hope Worldwide and exhibitions include Pop-Up Africa, 2014, GAFRA, London; Out of the Slum, 2012 Essen, Germany and various group and solo exhibitions in Nairobi, Kenya.
Notable Exhibitions
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London 2018
NADA Art Fair, New York City 2018
Pop-Up Africa, Gallery of African Art (GAFRA), London 2014
Hope at the Tarmac, One Off Gallery, Nairobi 2015
The Stateless, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi 2017
Art Transposition, LKB/G, Hamburg, 2017
