Street Art and the Reconfiguration of Civic Advocacy in Nairobi City

Abstract

Over the last two decades, social protests in Kenya have shifted to using art. Social protests involving art, such as the ‘State-Burial-ballot-Revolution’ and ‘Occupy-Parliament Movement,’ among others, have been witnessed in the country in the recent past. These artistic productions interpellate the spaces they interact with – the street, parliament, buildings, perimeter fences and public arenas – to denounce various issues, such as corruption, extra-judicial killings, political greed and other social injustices afflicting the nation. Espousing concepts of the carnivalesque by Mikhail Bakhtin, this article analyzes street art – street theatre and graffiti – utilized in Nairobi’s streets. In examining the literary aesthetics embedded in these innovative creative works, this article shows the significant potential of street art to stake, reclaim and reconfigure civil advocacy and, in the process, spur civic participation in various issues affecting the country today.

Keywords:

• advocacy
• aesthetics
• carnivalesque
• civic advocacy
• stake
• street art
• reconfiguration
• reclamation

Acknowledgement

All photos in this paper have been used with express permission from Boniface Mwangi, PAWA 254.

Notes

1 The name PAWA 254 comprises Kiswahili slang for power (PAWA) and the country’s international dialing code (+254).

2 Established in accordance with Article 230(4) of the Constitution of Kenya (2010), the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) is an independent commission mandated to set and regularly review the remuneration and benefits of all State officers; and to advise the national and county governments on the remuneration and benefits of all other public officers.

3 The #Occupy Wall Street movement was organized on September 17, 2011 in New York, USA. Juris (2012) avers that the movement relied on social media platforms to mobilize participants to engage in a social protest against the economic crisis facing the US at the time. Juris further points out that the level of interaction on social media was widespread and this in turn facilitated a domino effect enabling the movement to spread into broader territories and impacted other locales all over the world besides New York, the epicenter of the movement. It has been argued that a number of social protests staged across the world were inspired by the #Occupy Wall Street movement.

4 The Occupy Parliament Movement can be accessed on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = SHrcrFNQEJ8. The running time is 02:37, with key moments at the following points: 0:25 to 0:42; 02:00 to 02:15.

5 This ground has significant historical implications for Kenya’s struggle for democratic liberation and human rights. The site is symbolic of the birth of the democratic campaign for the Second Liberation which eventually led to the repeal of Section 2(a) of the constitution in the 1990s.