China Hopson
On thin ice
Performative reading
Performative reading
»That‘s the thing with a diary, though. In order to record your life, you sort of need to live it…Out in the world where it‘s so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.«
(David Sedaris)
Ogutu Muraya started keeping a diary in 2014 when he moved from Nairobi to Amsterdam to begin his Master’s studies. It was an exercise to map and locate his inner self against an unfamiliar backdrop and over the years grew into a personal archive of thousands of words. He is now in the process of returning to his personal archive, his diaries, with the aim of reconstructing the texts into a kind of fragmented memoir essay where he seeks to understand the challenges of his diaspora experience. On Thin Ice’ – is a performance reading of an excerpt from this ongoing book project. Ogutu invited visual and performance artist Quinsy Gario to read the texts on his behalf. Their collaboration is symbiotic practice in which the public readings and private writings create a feedback loop that instructs and progresses the writing which in turn develops new material for the readings.
Ogutu Muraya is a Kenyan writer and theatre maker whose work is embedded in the practice of orature. In his work, he searches for new forms of storytelling where socio-political aspects merge with the belief that art is an important catalyst for questioning certainties. He has performed at several theatres and festivals within East Africa and internationally.
Quinsy Gario is an activist, as well as a performance artist, born in Curaçao and raised in St Maarten before moving to the Netherlands. Quinsy is well known for his opposition to the figure of Zwarte Piet, his academic background is in gender studies and postcolonial studies.
Text / Concept: Ogutu Muraya
Performance: Quinsy Gario
With the support of Veem House for Performance.