In February 2023 pairs of Kenyan and Polish artists will again test the possibilities of artistic cooperation in a transcultural perspective when the third edition of TPAAE’s DUOS Festival opens in Mombasa and Kilifi. The DUOS will lead teams of interns from Pwani University and the Technical University of Mombasa in artmaking workshops on the theme of Social Ecology. A satellite event, the LAMPART Short Film Festival, features productions made by university students and Coastal filmmakers.
Social Ecology is a socio-political philosophy that sees the economic imbalances arising from various forms of hierarchy and domination as the root cause of the world’s impending environmental crisis brought on by global warming. Developed by American political philosopher Murray Bookchin, Social Ecology proposes a model of society adapted to human development and the biosphere through which this crisis might be addressed.
Working as DUOS in these broader collaborative ensembles, the artists will carry out projects in their various fields with students and local practitioners (artisans, musicians, dancers). These three-week collaborations are curated by Lukasz Jastrubczak in collaboration with Izabela Plucinska, instructors from the Academy of Art in Szczecin (Poland), which is a participating institution in TPAAE. The outcomes will be presented on 1st of March at the Alliance Francaise in Mombasa (Nyali), and on 4th of March in the Kilifi town center.
The festival is open to the local community. The joint projects will then travel to Szczecin, where they will be presented at the National Museum in Szczecin in June 2023. The festival features an allied Kids Session, in which pupils from area elementary schools engage in projects with visiting researcher from University of Macerata, Rosita Deluigi.
The Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Nairobi is the DUOS Festival Honorary Patron. TPAAE project has received funding from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 872718. Project is co-financed by the program of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education entitled “PMW” in 2020-2023; contract no. 5109/H2020/2020/2.
DUOS Artists :
JOSEPH ALLAN GREEN & RAFAŁ ŻARSKI street art
YONAH MUDIBO & NATALIA KARCZEWSKA installation
PHILIP TANGARA (PET THE POET) & ZORKA WOLLNY performance
CAROLINE NGOROBI & JUSTYNA CELEDA community theatre
MIKE OKOTH & ANNA MARIA KARCZMARSKA scenography
MBINGA & MIKOŁAJ MAŁEK scenography & photography
TOMMIE OMINDE & IGOR OMULECKI photography
RUBY WANJIRU KANG’ETHE & MAGDALENA SZYMKÓW film
RAFAŁ KRZANOWSKI percussion music
ROSITA DELUIGI Kids session
Curated by ŁUKASZ JASTRUBCZAK in collaboration with IZABELA PLUCIŃSKA
ABOUT SOCIAL ECOLOGY: Social Ecology is a theory of political organization based on confederations of self-governing municipalities, which stands counter to the current, capitalist system of top-down production and mass consumption. It seeks to create a unified society that is moral, decentralized and guided by reason. This type of socio-political organization today is practiced only in the Rojava autonomous region in northern Syria, making it the sole place in the world with this form of direct democracy.
