Staff Profile
Wanja Kimani
Research Associate
- Email: wanja.kimani@ncl.ac.uk
- Personal Website: https://www.wanjakimani.co.uk/
Wanja Kimani is a visual artist and writer. Through performance, film, textiles and installation, her work explores memory through the body and the fluidity within social structures that are designed to care and protect, but mutate into coercive forces within society. She imposes elements of her own life into public spaces, creative a personal narrative where is is both author and character. In 2018, her performance, Expectations was included in the Laboratoire Agit'Art presentation during Dak'Art Biennale of Contemporary African Art. In 2019, she presented her work at Art Dubai and as part of the group show, Yesterday in Today's memory at Espace Commines, Paris. From 2014-2020, she was co-founder of Guzo Art Projects, which was an artist-led initiative that aimed to support artistic practice through commissioning, researching and facilitating exhibitinos and events in borrowed spaces. Alongside artist Ephrem Solomon, they curated exhibitions in Nairobi, London, Dubai and Paris, showing works by artists Osborne Macharia, Robel Temesgen, Tegene Kunbi, Dennis Muraguri, Tewedros Bekele, Tamrat Gezahegn and Kirubel Melke. She is currently a PhD candidate in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.
Wanja Kimani is Research Assistant on the All Our Histories project in partnership with Arts&Heritage and the UKRI funded research project ‘Art and Work in East Africa: New Engagements in Art Curating’ - a collaboration comprising Newcastle University, Makerere University and 32 Degrees East, Ugandan Arts Trust.
She is a PhD candidate at Chelsea College of Arts where her working title is: 'Situating the black, queer womxn's body within public space through performance art'. She holds an MA in Human Rights from the University of Essex and a BA in Fine Art from the University for the Creative Arts.
- Kimani W. The Image of Ethiopia: From Campaign Imagery to Contemporary Art. In: Dr Julia Gallagher, ed. Images of Africa. Manchester University Press, 2015, pp.167-187. In Preparation.
- Kimani W. Emancipatory Practices: “Ethnicity” in the Contemporary Creative Industries in Kenya. Human Rights, Social Justice, and the Impact of Race 2010, (3), 251-263. In Preparation.