Pagans Series, 2014.
About 1:
Kenyan digital artist and filmmaker Jim Chuchu’s photographic series “Pagans” is a reconstruction of future-past anonymous African deities, their devotees and forgotten religious rites.
In 2012, Chuchu (1982) co-founded the NEST, a multidisciplinary art space and collective in Nairobi, Kenya. The following year he shot his first short film Homecoming as part of the African Metropolis project.
Pagans Series, 2014.
Earlier this year, the “Pagans” series was featured in the 2014 edition of Dak’Art, the 11th Biennale of Contemporary African Art, as part of the Precious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness exhibition in Dakar, Senegal. The show was cancelled a day after its opening by Senegalese authorities, who ruled that future exhibitions addressing the issue of homosexuality must be closed or cancelled.
About 2:
Pagans Series, 2014.
Jim Chuchu is an exceptional multi-discilplinary artist living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. His range of work includes films, photography and music.Chuchu directed his first short film, Homecoming and premiered at 2013 Durban International Film followed by screening at Toronto Film Festival, Santa Barbara international Film festival and few others Film festivals.His photographic series Pagans envision a reconstruction of future-past anonymous African Deities and attempts to reconstruct pre-colonial religious practices in Africa. Chuchu denounces the erasure of such forgotten practices by the monolithic religions. ‘It made me wonder why images and literature about Thor, Shiva and Buddha and other pre-Christian deities from other cultures are so easy to find, yet their African contemporaries are invisible” states Chuchu.In creating these portraits of unknown of Black Gods and the trance states of their worshippers, the artist is indirectly retracing the sources of religious discords. His supernatural and sacred beings entail a desire to reconnect with Ancient cultures.Stories of our life, his last film, recount true stories of LGBT life in Kenya, has received international recognition and has been recently selected in the Documentary Fortnight 2015: MOMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media.Pagans will be the first solo exhibition dedicated to the Artist. (text Mariane Ibrahim Gallery Seattle)
Pagans Series, 2014.
About 3:
Making its premiere at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival, Nairobi-based visual artist Jim Chuchu‘s first ever feature film Stories of Our Lives is a gallant look into LGBTQIA life in Kenya. Responsible for the incredible audio-visuals we’ve seen from Kenya’s NEST Collective– the Kenyan multidisciplinary alternative art hub whose Kenyan pop song covers compilation we reported on last October– and Nairobi-based musicians likeJarel, Chuchu not only shot and directed the film in a harrowing sixteen-month period but produced and performed four tracks from and inspired by the movie.
As in most of the continent, in Kenya there’s little room for non-heterosexual living. The film, which started out as a project to archive stories of people identifying as LGBTI in Kenya, features a series of five anonymous “black-and-white vignettes”– Duet, Run, Ask Me Nicely (Itisha Poa), Each Night I Dream, and Stop Running Away– that challenge life, love and the legacy we stand to leave as African people. A twinkling, vast expression of the desire to live life out loud, the tracks are a bouquet of pristinely arranged sounds that result in both breathtaking and powerful scoring.(from Okayafrica September 2014)
Copyright Photos: the artist.