An evening of poetic storytelling and fragmented memories

Ogutu Muraya tells stories. Using carefully chosen words, he calls up memories, personal and collective ones, but also completely fictional ones. Muraya poses the questions how to deal with complex and sometimes painful historical inheritances using fragments from different places and times – spanning from the congress of African intellectuals at the Sorbonne in 1956, at which writers, artists and theorists discussed how to deal with their historical heritage in light of advancing decolonisation to his own fears during the periodic presidential elections in Kenya from 1997 to 2007.  Inspired by James Baldwin’s writings and using historical photos and film recordings, Muraya investigates the uncomfortable truths within shared histories and artistic identities and thus unifies apparently contradictory fragments in one unstable poetic space.