Two exhibitions on heritage separately curated and going on this weekend will be worth your time. One is historical, the other futuristic but both celebrate Africa and her ancestry and speak to her future.
Nairobi Design Week which opened last weekend at The Waterfront Karen with the theme, We are the Ancestors is an introspection into the future.
Now in its 10th year, Nairobi Design has chosen this theme to enable those attending to interact with our past, and present and make a call to action for the future.
The team behind Nairobi Design led by Adrian Jankowiak believes that we are witnessing the merging of the final analogue generation and the birth of the first digital one, strengthening the fabric of our creativity. It is a generation that’s creative, bending the rules and taking the outlier path.
At the Kenya National Museum, the exhibition titled Planet Africa takes you through an archaeological journey of the continent.
Planet Africa’s running theme is on ancestry, belonging, borrowing and archiving for the future.
The exhibition has been on display since November and is simultaneously running in Ghana, Eswatini, Mozambique and Germany.
Through its well-organised panels and audio-visual setup we get the narrative about our history, culture, food, engineering and people.
There are lots of similarities in these two exhibitions, which prompted me to actually put them together in one piece. One is cowries. Another is journeys, borrowing and belonging.
At Planet Africa, cowries receive a mention as one of the items used for trade alongside gold, tortoise shells, ivory and glass beads in return for Asian rice, jewels, spices and precious fabrics.
At the Waterfront, younger designers have taken time to carry out their research on the value of these beads and what they meant, recasting them into beautiful pieces on display.Â
Take Sharmee Shah, of design house Azaadi Studios, one of the exhibitors. Sharmee’s exhibition on the Khanga-Sari interrogates her identity as a Kenyan bred with South-Asian blood and realises that this particular cloth is similar in both contexts.
The khanga-sari carries stories of those who went before us journeying across the vast ocean that separates both heritages.
Sharmee has adorned her clothes with cowrie shells, a common currency from both areas.
She examines the connections made and journeys forged along the Indian Ocean migration routes, but fascinates with her questions on gender, patriarchy and meaning also reminding me that for both the Swahili and Indians, the saris are a heritage passed on from mothers to daughters.
 Sharmee Shah putting the final touches on the exhibition on the Khanga-sari for Nairobi Design week.
Photo credit: Pool
Then there’s the mother-daughter duo of Sane and Victoria Maimba. Sane Maimba who runs Shanga na Kanga has long been fascinated by ancient beads, especially from West Africa
. In her collection, you’ll find pieces made with Mali wedding beads (originated from Czechoslovakia) obtained in trade by the Fulani and Hebron beads, originally from Palestine which were adopted by the Igbo and the Yoruba people. Then there are the beautiful Millefiori trade beads historically used as a trade currency.
None originally ours but how we have redefined them as statement pieces and even after their original function was dissolved, Africa treasured them.
Victoria Maimba on the other hand delved into her native Giriama ancestry, examining the beading from her community, its uses and creating modernised versions of the same. Both tell me they found their symmetry while on completely different journeys in life, but you can’t fail to see the generational resonance in this one. The past is speaking into the future.
Many of the designers you will encounter have depicted the theme aptly. A last-minute opposition from neighbours to the Opportunity Factory in the leafier suburbs of Karen meant that exhibits like Sandra Githinji’s Coka Mucii - Rudi nyumbani could not be transported to The Waterfront.
The multi-disciplinary designer based in Melbourne exhibits a Kikuyu traditional hut using local traditional materials like raffia, with the hut speaking to home as a site of memory and cultural production.
Part of the exhibitions on display at Nairobi Design Week happening between 6th - 16th March at the Waterfront, Karen.
Photo credit: Pool
There’s the auditory experience curated by Michelle Ndebele. The year will be 2200 - what choices will you have made that will leave this place a better place for your generations?
“Early humans were said to be primitive but I find them to be innovative and were cognisant of the raw materials available to them which helped them plan accordingly,” says Dineo Masia, an archaeology student from South Africa in one of the videos accompanying the exhibit.
With the younger generation borrowing heavily from the ancestors in one set-up, in another, we see their innovation in the stone tools they used for hunting and gathering, in the choice of cultivating wild trees which gave ingredients for traditional dishes and fodder for livestock in later years.
Planet Earth exhibition also gives detailed information about our interaction with India from the trade routes between Sub-Saharan Africa through the Impassable Sahara onto Southwest Asia.
More than 2000 years ago this barter with India saw the acquisition of domestic animals such as sheep, goat and cattle to the continent and the movement of important crops such as coffee, oil, pearl millet or sorghum to India. It is difficult to imagine that cows were not indigenous to Africa and our native animals were mostly wild, except the guinea fowl.
With more than 300 universities and research institutions working to preserve archaeological heritage globally and showcase our past, 100 futuristic designers, both digital and in-person will be at the other end of town, reminding us that the things we do today will impact future generations. Indeed, we are tomorrow’s ancestors.
This lively maritime trade developed first with India and beyond, led to the development of political and economic African elites organising this movement of goods and production and making it possible for the early states to come into being.
We see the early kingdoms and the reining rulers who made their mark on the continent. The strength of women such as Cleopatra II, the Queen of Habasha in Aksum, the Queen of Sheba and Manda’s Rasi ya Mwana who ruled from 1381 to 1390.
The monuments built, each one showcasing the monumental might of the rulers at the time are spoken of in this exhibition.
Indeed, the work of archaeologists working together with the local communities in digging up, recording and finally archiving this history cannot be downplayed. In fact, one person put it, they care for mankind's richest treasures without becoming rich themselves.
