Wanini Kimemiah
Wanini Kimemiah is a writer, visual artist and archive maker born and based in Nairobi, Kenya. Their artistic practice is a research and process-based exploration of the idea of the sensorium. Using a variety of media as sensorial tools that range from writing, painting, collage, lens-based media, textile-based media and alternative processes in cyanotypes, they cultivate an ecology of existence that pulls back human attention from the distractions and disconnects of anthropocentricism to the instinctive interconnectedness with the worlds which we belong to. They were the inaugural fellow for the Stedelijk × Contemporary And Editorial Fellowship 2023/2024.
Their visual work has featured in print, and in online and physical exhibitions. Notable exhibitions include an open studio exhibition “In Which Our Wants Are Worlds” at Contemporary And, Nairobi (August 2022), “Antifragile” group show at Circle Art Agency, Nairobi (July 2023) and “Reverbing Ontologies: On Margins” group show in Umëa, Sweden (June 2024)
As a writer, their fiction is speculative with a science fiction leaning while their work in nonfiction is critical art writing that responds to culture productions such as art, films and books. Their short story, “Sunset Blues” has been translated into Italian and Japanese and featured in the Futuri Uniti d’Africa anthology from Future Fiction and Crystal Prism Queer SF Anthology.