I’m writing this on the day Gen Z and other activists (who are in fact, just regular people like you and me) have given Kenya the day off to protest the Finance Bill 2024, a bill that will create additional tax burdens on everyday Kenyans who are already struggling. During the #RejectFinanceBill2024 demonstrations last week in the city centre, water was used both as a weapon and as a tool for healing. Water cannons were employed against the peaceful protesters along with tear gas, but the community was there with bottles of fresh water ready to support one another to clean out the irritates so they could continue to share their voices. A few blocks away, we were hosting an exhibition centered around water. The irony and the connections have not escaped us.
Seventeen artists of different practices, ages and genders came together to explore water, two weeks before the day described above, for an art residency. The selected topic was not random, nor frivolous, but represented a host of issues (both positive and negative) that all Kenyans face. Just weeks before the start of this artistic conversation and exploration, over 200 people died in floods that took over many communities in Kenya. Hundreds more lost their homes and were displaced by either the water or the demolitions that followed the rains. And yet, just as the clouds parted, and the rains eased, it seemed the rage and accountability towards leadership, the ones who should’ve and could’ve done more to protect our communities from potential flooding, also eased.
Water... it’s about balance, too much and we drown, too little and we die of thirst. It nourishes us, feeds us, irrigates our crops, cools our hot weather, helps bring shade, quenches our thirst, provides endless opportunities of wonder and spiritual awakening. It draws us in, cleanses us, but when weaponised and commodified, it can also hurt us, kill us, poison us and poison our lands. It can be a tool of bringing people together for good or as a tool for control and manipulation. We can’t live without it and yet we often don’t consider how critical it is for our survival and we don’t often remain humble to it, nor do we care for it as we should.
In many ways, water is like community. We must acknowledge one another and take care of one another. We must see and know that claiming all the water or poisoning wells, just like overburdening people with taxes or misusing public funds, will only bring the entire community into hardship. There is no balance in this. There is no healthy outcome for the ecosystem that we all rely on if we work and push extreme agendas.
The exhibition that resulted from a week of conversation and exploration on water was deeply moving and understandably political. A mixed media piece showing figures standing in flood waters surrounded by jerry cans illustrated the recent paradox we faced of having floods but still needing to buy water. The conversation around this piece brought up the bylaw in Nairobi that makes it illegal to harvest rainwater. A set of prints directly across the space showed a person sitting in bed with water all around him, a real situation one of the artists experienced in the past few months. In sharing his story, the artist, Sammy Mutinda, said that ironically, just before the floods, he had joined a team to seek out the source of the Nairobi River, tracing it up and out of the city, only for the “river to come to us” weeks later.
Other pieces in the exhibition explored the positive and negative elements of water, the idea that “keeping your head above water” was both a terrifying and yet hopeful saying. Forever drawn to large bodies of water for healing and meditation, several works explored our species predetermined and yet unconscious obsession with water, large and small, the sound of water, the feel of water, the power of water. We explored the idea of universes of life existing in a drop of water, the strangeness of water as a commodity, the burden of growing technologies, such as AI, on fresh water used for cooling servers. Finally, we looked at the balance and beauty found with water – a garden, full of plants, full of calmness, community and health.
While we hosted this exhibition last week and continue to reflect on it today, Kenyans were then and are now gathering in their communities, across the country, and in the Nairobi city centre to share their frustrations with the imbalances and injustices they are experiencing with the government and its policies and behaviors. The recent floods, the lost lives, the water exhibition was all too familiar with this frustration and watch and support our colleagues as they fight water with water in the streets to voice their concerns and to advocate for a more balanced approach.
Online, everyone is currently sharing posters, memes and strategies to be part of the demonstrations safely and peacefully, either from their homes with their children or in the streets. Some have shared ways to disable the water cannons that were a big part of protests last week, hopefully changing them from weapons to water fountains.
As uncertain and unpredictable as these demonstrations can be, today there is a positive energy in the air, one of solidarity and of the knowledge that together things can change for the better. We often joked during the residency that we need to “be like water,” but what kind? The rage-filled torrents that break through roads and dig new trails or the stagnant mosquito filled ponds that dry up over time in the sun.... or maybe someplace in between? So far today it feels like we are powerful like water... like oceans... masses so unmistakable that you must approach them with reverence and care.
