Скачать или смотреть Kibera artist turns garbage into gold

(7 Nov 2015) LEAD IN:
An artist living in one of Kenya's poorest slums is making a splash on the international art scene with his pieces made from recycled trash.
Otieno Gomba gathers trash from his local community to create pieces that have already been exhibited in Germany and Europe.
STORY-LINE:
Here in Kibera, Kenya's largest slum, piles of trash build up along railway tracks and roads.
It's up to the locals deal with their trash - the government doesn't collect it.
But the unwanted waste is a welcome resource for local artist Otieno Gomba.
Gomba collects scrap metal and other trash from a local dealer... he even pays to take away the best pieces.
Today's garbage collection will cost him a dollar, but he believes that he can turn that dollar into much more.
Gomba takes his haul back to his studio at the Maasai Mbili Art Centre.
He sets to work on his next piece, twisting and bending the metal into shape.
Gomba co-founded the art centre. It's just 12 feet square (3.6 metres square), but provides local artists in Kibera with space to work.
As a boy, Gomba had a keen interest in art, but when his guardian could not afford to take him to art school he decided to be a sign painter in Kibera.
Then after a few years he started creating art pieces.
A discarded car number plate, a broken speaker, a radio and other bits and bobs are put together with Gomba's creative flair.
Gomba explains why he uses junk.
"A person who does not live in Kibera thinks Kibera is a bad place but those who live there are in heaven. Basically, they are going about their lives. So I use junk to show people that something that is rejected can be used to make something new that I can share with everyone."
He used discarded metal and wood to create a series of art pieces he calls 'the maze'.
He fastened pieces of scrap metal irregularly onto a wooden surface to show the haphazard way houses are constructed in Kibera.
The piece of art shows Kibera from an aerial point of view to demonstrate that Kibera is a maze of complicated pathways without beginning or end.
The artists' collective have held several exhibitions internationally, the most recent being in Germany at Iwalewahaus Centre in Bayreuth University.
Living in the slum not only gives them subject matter for their art, but also gives them an opportunity to use the abundant trash to create their work.
Sylvia Gichia is the director of Kuona Trust a Centre for Visual Arts in Kenya - a place that promotes artists from Kenyan and the East Africa region as a whole.
"Otieno Gomba is an artist who has been in the art scene for a while as a community artist working in a collective that is pretty well known especially in the German circles and the European circles," she says.
"They have created work that is already in collections in various museums. They have had residency projects and programmes internationally. He would probably be able to sell his art piece here close to 100,000 -150,000 shillings (USD $1000 - $1500) based on size also. If in a couple of years could easily resell it for half a million (USD $5000)."
Gichia says starting out as an artist in Kenya - let alone in a poor area like Kibera - is tough.
"We are still actually in the society where art is not the first thing your parents will encourage you to do, unfortunately. We are getting much better that we ever did in my parents' days. But I think until our society or our communities start to understand art and to embrace it, it is always going to be quite difficult because we are not buying art, you know."
They invited him to paint with them and he has never looked back.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...