How Artists Apondiii and Magati Maosa Are Creating Safe Spaces
Nairobi's creative scene survives as one of the industries most affected by the pandemic. With the postponement of major exhibitions in the past year, the city’s most prominent galleries feel like ghost towns, adapting to reconcile the traditions of past exhibitions with the competing tensions of covid protocols. Apondiii and Magati Maosa decided to take matters into their own art by crafting a tender exploration of belonging.
The exhibition and installation, cleverly titled S P A C E, was inspired by Apondiii’s interpretation of a safe space, namely, her bedroom. “My bedroom is my safe space, a place where I can be free and vulnerable. By extension, my exhibition is a visual reflection of what my beautifully chaotic mind looks like,” says Apondiii. Rather than be intimidated by the current lack of structural support for young Kenyan artists like herself who are hungry for visibility, this 26 year old visual artist and curator decided to stretch the limits of her imagination instead.
The exhibition fell into place as a result of happenstance. “It wasn’t intentional to have the exhibition at my home,” she says. “I built the concept from a space I naturally had access to that I didn’t have to pay for. The garage is my studio and the bed has always been there. So, we built the concept around what we had”. Similarly, partnering with Magati Maosa, best known for his mastery of graphic design, felt like the next organic step. When Apondiii approached Magati with the idea, he remembers immediately asking her to set a date. Not having worked together before Magati credits their transparency with each other as the reason for the exhibition's success. “Transparency was key, beginning from the initial sketches all the way to the show's premier” he says.
On first entry into Apondiii’s garage, the exhibition and installation reminded me of my bedroom which serves as my own creative playground. Apondiii’s bed took centre stage, while each corner of the room was laced with the two artists' personal belongings, ranging from flower pots, magazines and the clothing rack displaying merchandise from Magati’s impressive catalogue. Though the garage itself was spatially small, and was filled top to bottom with several items, it didn’t feel littered. I was particularly fond of the Beano and Dandy Comics which resurrected the nostalgia of childhood memories.
As an interactive installation, Apondiii’s aim was for the audience to question everything, from the walk-in to the book shelves. The glass panel situated at the end of the room with the words scribbled “what does space mean to you” created the opportunity for the audience to take a meditative pause. Admittedly, the clever responses written on the glass panel by other audience members intimidated me. I know the glass panel’s opacity meant that I couldn’t clearly see my reflection staring back at me but it felt like a mirror of my thoughts anyway. To answer the question, I simply wrote down “home”. I know it’s a cliched response. Yet the atmosphere the two artists created cultivated introspection. A space where we could all be ourselves without pretense.
The bedroom isn’t always a voluntary sanctuary. At one point in the last two years, each of us were confined to our bedrooms to self-isolate or quarantine away from others. One of Magati’s illustrations, titled ‘Vanity’ captured this idea. “I created this piece during the first COVID wave. Sitting and creating indoors became a comfortable habit due to the lockdown restrictions”, he explains. The oil pastel drawing on poster colour paper features a shirtless Magati basking in the sun. “In the midst of the pandemic, self-portraiture has been integral to archiving my work”.
Painting by Magati Maosa
I ask Apondiii if she encountered any challenges wearing the hats of both artist and curator. “The exhibition was a success, considering that planning and preparation took place a month prior. Our time management and attention to detail allowed us to edit and revisit things. I really enjoyed curating this one and the turn out was bigger than I expected” she reveals. As I left the space, I felt overwhelmingly nurtured. If Apondiii’s garage walls could talk, I know they’d express that home is where the he[art] is.
