‘Land, Language and the Stranger’ turns to hospitality, colonial histories, gendered labour and belonging to reconsider how land shapes life in Kenya.
9 September 2026
What does it mean to belong to a place, and who is permitted to call it their own? ‘Land, Language and the Stranger’ approaches land not simply as property, but as a site where histories, relationships and questions of power continue to unfold.
Developed with Down River Road, the experimental exhibition brings together Brian Muraya, Muthoni Mwangi, Kamwangi Njue and Cynthia Nyakiro, alongside Adam Yawe, Antony Muisyo and Kabi Kimari. Emerging from readings, gatherings, workshops and research, the project considers hospitality, ownership, colonisation and gendered labour through installations, moving image, sound and collaborative works.
Muraya explores the shifting relationship between host and stranger, while Mwangi examines histories of land ownership through gender and class. Njue and Nyakiro turn to sound sculpture to consider land as an active presence, capable of responding to colonial histories, political protest and social transformation.
Together, the works search for what the artists call South A, an imagined missing place that opens new possibilities for thinking through the present.
This exhibition is on view at Goethe-Institut Kenya from 3 to 18 September 2026
