Franz Cerami Tells the Human Story Behind Kenya’s Coffee Supply Chain
Nairobi, 2 June 2026 — On the occasion of the Italian Republic Day celebrations, the Residence of the Ambassador of Italy in Nairobi will host Jute Portraits, a new artistic project by Franz Cerami, developed initiated by the Embassy of Italy in Nairobi, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in Nairobi and UNIDO ACT Coffee Programme (Advancing Climate-Resilience and Transformation in African Coffee).
The ACT Coffee Programme is a strategic initiative supported by the Italian Development Cooperation, within the framework of the Italian Mattei Plan and the EU Global Gateway. It supports African coffee-producing countries in achieving a structural transformation of the coffee value chain, strengthening socio-economic sustainability and climate resilience from farm to export, while helping producers and institutions respond to evolving market and regulatory requirements.
Jute Portraits was born from encounters with workers across Kenya’s coffee supply chain. Through approximately 300 video portraits, the artist creates a visual narrative dedicated to the faces, gestures, landscapes and stories of the people involved in coffee production: farmers, pickers, workers, communities and territories.
The ACT Coffee Programme was designed precisely to shift this dynamic: to put people back at the centre of the coffee sector, through skills development, economic inclusion and advocacy. Africa is the birthplace of coffee.. It is grown, harvested, processed and traded by African communities whose labour sustains an entire global industry — yet their faces and stories are rarely told. Behind every cup of coffee there is a complex value chain involving multiple industries and thousands of individuals. Jute Portraits makes that chain visible by bringing these individuals to the forefront.
The project combines video, digital painting, manual interventions, graphite, colour and natural materials. The portraits, filmed in Kenya, are subsequently reworked by the artist through a frame-by-frame painting process, transforming them into animated images that will be projected onto buildings in Nairobi and, on 2 June, within the gardens of the Residence of the Ambassador of Italy.
For the installation at the Residence, large structures made of bamboo, rope and jute will be created, designed by the artist and produced with the contribution of local artisans. Jute — a material symbolically linked to the transport and memory of coffee — thus becomes a pictorial surface, a projection support and a living material within the artwork itself.
Alongside the large-scale video installation, the project also includes a series of physical artworks printed on jute, some of which will become part of institutional collections in Kenya, including the Embassy of Italy in Nairobi, the Italian Cultural Institute, the National Museums of Kenya and the United Nations Office at Nairobi.
The Visual Storytelling Lab: Young African Talent at the Centre
One of the most significant dimensions of the project is represented by the Visual Storytelling Lab Nairobi, a training and co-production programme developed alongside the creation of Jute Portraits. The Lab brought together a selected group of young Kenyan emerging talents — photographers, filmmakers, visual storytellers — for an intensive two-day workshop led by Franz Cerami. The programme focused on portrait photography, territorial storytelling, ethical image-making and production methodology.
Following the workshop, a small group of the most promising participants were selected and hired as paid assistants to work directly alongside Franz Cerami throughout the production of the installation: from location scouting and portrait sessions, to image selection, backstage documentation and the final projection phases. This activity is not a secondary element of the project. It is one of its central pillars — and a direct expression of the ACT Coffee Programme’s commitment to skills development and local capacity building: training young African professionals in a real, high-level creative production context, with clear roles, fair compensation and direct access to an international artistic process.
“Jute Portraits was born from encounters with the people working within Kenya’s coffee supply chain. I encountered faces, hands, gestures, landscapes and stories. From these encounters emerged portraits that I painted by hand, frame by frame, transforming them into moving images. For me, this work is a way of restoring dignity, colour and presence to a community that contributes every day to an economic, cultural and human story connecting Kenya and Italy.”
— Franz Cerami
With Jute Portraits, Franz Cerami continues his artistic research on the relationship between cities, communities and portraiture. Following projects developed in numerous international contexts, the artist brings to Nairobi a work that creates a dialogue between contemporary art, cultural diplomacy, international cooperation and the memory of places.
The installation confirms the role of art as a tool for connection between cultures, communities and institutions.
The Artist
Franz Cerami (Naples, 1963) lives and works between Naples and Rio de Janeiro. Artist, author and university lecturer, he has been appointed three times as Ambassador of Italian Design in the World by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
His artistic research focuses on the use of light, digital storytelling and immersive public art installations. His works have been presented internationally in countries including Italy, Brazil, Armenia, Japan, India, Latvia and Montenegro.
Among his best-known projects are Lighting Flowers, Red Venus for the MANN – National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Lumina in Sarajevo, Remix Portraits in São Paulo and Yerevan, and T2 Portraits for Milan Malpensa Airport.
For more information: franzcerami.com .
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