RECYCLING, PROMOTING YOUTH ART AND INTERACTIVE LEARNING
The KEYS Art project is the latest initiative by KEYS. It promotes the production of paintings done on recycled Airlines disposable cushion covers, recovered by young people from Korogocho slum, at the Nairobi City Council (Dandora) dumpsite in the vicinity.
The covers are carefully stiffened with laundry starch and canvass primer applied, then used as a cheaper alternative to commercial canvass or art paper, by self taught artists from the slum and students of fine art.
The project seeks to provide scope for talented slum youth, who cannot afford to go to art school, and fine art students to exchange experiences, thereby bonding and learning from each other to:
- Encourage risk taking in arts production
- Produce art that find creative ways of reaching new audiences
- Produce work whose creativity and innovation promote the excellence and cultural value of artistic work in general
- Blend their skills in producing new innovative works of art that are likely to earn for them some income and – for some, a career and maybe eventually, fame!
The KEYS art project is also attempting to liberate the artists from ‘the pressure of creating safe work’ that perhaps is more ‘accessible’ to audiences. It aims at freeing the artist from copying or pursuing conventional art trend (the norm) so that they might begin to make the kind of innovative work they dream about doing. Necessity is the mother of invention, so lack of commercial raw materials does not inhibit the artist’s innovation. This innovation may also be expressed through the forms in which they work, boldly and even radically re-looking, places in which they show work, the methods they use to attract attention to their work and the audiences they target and so on
The KEYS approach will enable exciting and innovative art that finds new ways to amplify the voices of disadvantaged youthful artists, reach new audiences and expand the role and values of art in Kenya so that they become better rooted as an important part of modern life. The hope is that seeds of innovation, new direction and new insights, borne from local socio-economic and environmental contexts will steadily germinate in the mainstream and contribute to a dynamic, regenerating and exciting art sector.
Korogocho youth also make the mounting and final framing of the art pieces. They are currently involved in the development of the prototype of a machine for making their art framing from recycled plastic waste. This technology is meant to utilize the enormous volumes of plastic waste and to maintain a recycling context of the art productions.
Marketing art is not easy. Due to misconception about art by the public, recovering the artist’s equivalence in materials and skills input from sales is hard. It is this general despondency that the KEYS art project seeks to turn around.KEYS is thus working on exhibition and marketing avenues crucial to the growth of the project. For instance, KEYS has approached the Kenya Airports Authority proposing an arrangement that will enable the group to exhibit its arts work at their major Airports as a show of 'cooperate environmental responsibility' by KAA for utilizing waste originating from their core business. The project artists are also urged to embrace entrepreneurial skills to turn their talents into a means of earning a livelihood.
Through a collaboration with African Community Education Network, a Nairobi based NGO, KEYS art exhibited at the Africa regional UNESCO conference on “The power of youth and adult learning for Africa’s development’ held at the UN headquarters in Nairobi on 4-7 November 2008. KEYS also hopes to get an opportunity and support from well-wishers, to exhibit at other such conferences and symposia.
