What do you mean by the term 'artivism'?
Artivism is the use of art for social change. Art is a powerful tool when it comes to creating awareness and rallying people towards influencing decisions and shifting systems. As a spoken-word artiste, my content is geared towards highlighting issues of concern that society is facing with a call to action. I am passionate about the prevention of human trafficking and having led a docket as a programmes officer at Peace Tree Network, I find myself diving more and more into the discourse of safe migration as a creative. This explains the facilitations I have been doing as an artiste at 'Beneath the BaoBabs' and the Kisima festival in Kilifi. As co-founder of Anika, we endeavour to pursue and implement artistic projects that are people-centred; that is, to gather information but also capacity build and strengthen communities towards pushing for their well-being.
What is the correlation between art and social justice?
I believe the role of art in society is not only to entertain but also to serve as a driving force towards the shaping of policies that ensure the positive growth of the citizens in a country. It speaks against human rights violations and hence plays a role in the accountability of systems and the leadership in place and most importantly reminds people that the sovereign power belongs to them. Art is a powerful tool. Were it not, songs like Wajinga Nyinyi by King Kaka, and Sheria by Sarabi Band would still be playing on the airwaves. In poems like Dear Mr President by Willie Oeba and Chess Board by Spontaneous the poet would receive accolades rather easily. And photographers like Boniface Mwangi, and Bonface Otieno would not have to receive threats over the work they do. This goes to show that indeed these works are people-centred.
What is the future of Kenya's creative industry?
The creative industry is finding its footing and finally, more artistes have a place to call home. People are being more receptive to various genres of art and are willing to spend on them hence making our livelihoods more sustainable. The spoken word scene has changed. We may not call it an industry yet but the vision is nearer its lifespan. Now we finally can check boxes as spoken word artistes nominated for a spoken word award as opposed to the earlier days when we would try to find our identity in music. We have a couple of spoken word artistes getting recognition for the works they do and can even negotiate for their worth. The number of poets practising is increasing day by day and now we can think of projects around masterclasses and branding.
If money was not an issue, what projects would you implement?
In this time and space, I have four main things. I tasted the art of lecturing about the politics of performance at Queens of Belfast University during the Covid pandemic and I desire to do more of those. I would also love to tour the world's healing hearts through my poetry and build communities of female artistes whose capacities enable them to sustain their livelihoods and mental health. Most importantly, I cannot wait for the day I will serve as an ambassador for the Kenyan spokenword poetry docket to be able to influence policies that will speak directly to our needs as a budding industry.