A Beautiful Slum: Snippets of beauty beyond rust, rubble

Lucas Oyugi's portrait of a school child in class at the exhibition 'A Beautiful Slum' at the HOF Gallery in Kibera, Nairobi on February 12, 2025
 

Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group

The HOF Gallery sticks out like sin in a citadel. Amidst the rubble around and the iron shanties flanking it, she stands tall in her whitewashed poise, offering shelter to a series of works by five gentlemen; Jeremiah Onyango, Ramadhan Said, Samson Otieno, Lucas Oyugi and James Irungu, born and bred in the underbelly of Kibera slums.

For a long time, Kibera's overriding narrative has been its squalor, its pallid state has been a constant billboard for fund drives that do little to help the community.

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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.