This weekend the Africa Nouveau festival takes place at the Ngong’ Racecourse Waterfront. This is definitely one of the biggest contemporary art festivals in the country – if not the biggest. Creatives drawn from all over the continent will have three days to showcase the best of African creativity in music, visual art, digital art, fashion, film making and so much more.
The festival is “purposefully designed by creators of nu African culture for the creators and curators of the culture and their fans, with a deliberate focus on alternative and progressive sights and sounds from Africa: with a view to expand the understanding of Africa.”
Theme
The theme for this year’s festival is #AfroBubblegum. This is derived from a growing consciousness among African creatives that their output need not be about hunger/ starvation/ AIDS/ War and other themes often expected from African creative work.
The creative scene across the continent is in a renaissance stage. Young creatives are telling new stories – their stories- and driving the conversations people have about African creativity. In Kenya, there is an abundance of creative talents and majority of them will be on show at the Africa Nouveau festival.
What to expect
There is no doubt that it’s going to be an amazing weekend for those who make it for the festival. The music lineup is amazeballs with lots of artist you’ve probably heard of but haven’t seen perform live on stage. Even if you’re not there for the music, you’ll still get value for money. Plus you get to be experience a piece of the #NuNairobi culture.
I’m looking forward to watching some of my new favs perform live music sets. Last year I got the chance to watch a few of those on the lineup live. This includes the likes of Blinky Bill, MDQ and Njerae. I’m looking forward to watching guys I’ve only listened to online. The likes of Ayrosh, Wanja Wohoro, Phy, Emmah Cheruto and Steph Kapela. If you’ve been following the likes of Jamhuri Festival and the RATA project then you know these guys have amazing songs.
The music is my main focus of the weekend but that doesn’t mean I am not looking forward to the other forms of art. This tweet by Patricia Kihoro highlights what lies in store.
Guys!!! A short film that @squirecurtis and I starred will be showing at @AfricaNouveau this weekend! It was directed by @jimchuchu and the films showing have been curated by @wanuri!! I’m so excited! Do you know how wonderful it is for our own films to be screened here? pic.twitter.com/5hoqBT9Unv
— Patricia Kihoro (@Misskihoro) January 31, 2018
I can go on and on about the Africa Nouveau Festival but I’ll save the rest for the post – festival report. Will you be coming?
