Tangu Nest Collective wachomoke kwa scene 2012, wamekuwa mbogi imechangamsha usanii Kenya design ya ngori wakitumia mamovie, TV, fashion na projects za ngoma kati ya vitu mob. Projects wamefanya ni kama Stories of Our Lives, feature film yenye ilikaziwa viewing Kenya juu ya utiaji ya censorship lakini inapatikana kama mbuku; web series Tuko Macho yenye inafuata ma-vigilante flani online wenye […]
Survival We all need sadness to survive. the world swells like a birdsong. your gothic dress ruined. you feel upturned; an evacuated garden of butterflies sits in your throat. often sadness is a caged bird. one if not troubled is a safehouse. the world in its glowworm character with its teeth in a child’s half ruined laughter. it just doesn’t […]
Your grandmothers trimmed your hair, their scissors making trails on your scalp. Your paternal grandmother had her hair trimmed with the same scissors. Your grandmother’s hair was always tucked under a headscarf, maybe because she was a good Christian woman, the first in her family. Your grandmother called her white hair tsimbutse. Your grandmother at your father’s graduation wore a […]
We say it is our culture. That those who die are not gone but exist in a world we can’t reach when breath still lives in us. They linger over us. Watching everything we do. Punishments or blessings in the palm of their hands. Ready for those who have earned them. The departed long for us to know them and […]
“Is this what it means to be with someone?” This is the question posed by Michelle, the lead protagonist in The Man Who Cuts Tattoos (Owisu) when we first meet her. Her angst-filled musing aptly summarizes the film, especially as she asks this of herself right before she holds her palm over a lighter while playing a game with her […]
Today, I learnt how to empty my body of the world in parts, Told my shoulders to hold no weight if possible, carry only what it must. Asked my legs to stop, the journey can always continue tomorrow, Life is not a race and if it were, the prizes would still be ours. Closed my palms, there is no warmth […]
I’m looking in the world for words today— ‘dimpled’, ‘dashed’ and ‘danger’;I’m looking for words as tough as rock— ‘marriage’, ‘tattoo’ and ‘mother’. My skin sloughs DNA shreds like cotton— words like ‘sorry’ and ‘repentance’, but I want my words more rough and ready— ‘quartz’, and ‘crack’ and ‘crevice’. I’ve replaced myself several times— longing for words like ‘tender’ and […]
