The artistic project “Jute Portraits,” curated by Franz Cerami, aims to celebrate in a creative and innovative way the community of workers involved in the coffee value chain in Kenya, placing people, their stories and their role at the center of one of the country’s most important agricultural sectors.
Franz Cerami is an Italian visual artist active internationally, known for projects that combine portraiture, community participation and multimedia installations. His work often focuses on the social dimension of art and on the relationship between identity, memory and territory, through a creative processes that involve directly the people portrayed and the local contexts.
The project began in early March with a two-week artistic residency in Kenya. During this initial phase, the artist held a two-day workshop at Kenyatta University, where he presented his artistic background and explained the creative process through which the portraits are produced. During the workshop, he also illustrated how these images will later be reworked and transformed into a larger artistic installation. The artist also shared with students his international experience and the methodology that characterizes his projects: an approach based on participation, dialogue with communities and the direct involvement of people in the creative process.
In the following weeks, the artist created numerous portraits of members of the community involved in the coffee value chain. These images will later be reworked and transformed into a videomapping project and a multimedia artistic installation, which will be presented to the Kenyan public in the months of May and June.
“Jute Portraits” is an artistic project promoted by the Italian Cultural Institute of Nairobi and the Embassy of Italy in Kenya, with the support of UNIDO and the AICS Office of Nairobi.