Sculptors head to Kisii for global annual forum

There will be different participants coming from different countries and, until we hear otherwise, it will be largely self-sponsored, not underwritten by UNESCO as it was in 2011 and 2012.

There will also be many more Kenyan participants this year, which attests to the rising numbers of local sculptors.

And not only Kisiis like the award-winning artists Gerald Motondi, Peter Oendo Kenyanya, and Ong’esa himself, but also sculptors coming from Nairobi and Ukambani where wood carvers like Mzee Kilonzi have come to appreciate that they can as well work in stone as wood.

One of the most important differences between this year’s symposium and past ones is the role being played by the Ministry of Roads.

The ministry will contribute to the ‘Art on Wheels’ travelling exhibition that will shift from Kisii town, (where for the first time the actual stone carving will take place; previously the carving was done in Tabaka where the vast majority of soapstone quarries are found) to several sites and stops along the way before it reaches the Nairobi National Museum where the first Jubilee Stone Sculpture Festival will be held from November 1st to 30th.

“The National Museum exhibition will showcase the sculptures produced during the symposium as well as those that will celebrate ‘stone carving in Kenya over the last 50 years, and even longer than that,” Ong’esa said.

One element of the Nairobi exhibition will be presented by Trust for African Rock Art (TARA), which has worked closely with Ong’esa and other members of the Kisii community ever since the Trust’s managing director David Coulson was shown a sample of the ancient rock art that exists in Kisii County but which previously had been undocumented – and unprotected – until Coulson came to the first symposium and saw it for himself.

In addition to an expose of Kenyan rock art during the Museum’s Jubilee exhibition (which is thought to be at least several thousand years old), the showcase will include historic sculptures by pre-independence Kisii stone carvers, such as the late Alexander Mogendi, Thomas Okari and others.

Sculptures

Ong’esa also hopes to feature sculptures made by contemporary Kenyan artists, such as Gakunju Kaigwa, Lydia Galava, Maggie Otieno and Patricia Njeri.

“There will be sculptures coming from several private collections, some of which have never been seen in public before,” said Ong’esa who hopes the Museum exhibition will enhance public appreciation of Kenya’s stone sculptural heritage.

There are aspects of this year’s symposium which remain the same as years’ past.

For instance, Elkana Ong’esa will still be at the helm of activities, steering a team of fellow Kenyans who are helping him organise the month-long artistic event which has been modelled after a comparable sculptors’ symposium that Ong’esa attended in China eight years ago.

“That was an eye-opening event and one that inspired me to come home and create our own symposium as a way of bringing international attention to our Kisii soap stone and its contribution, not just to the Kisii [county] economy, but also to world culture, given our stone is unique — not to be found anywhere else on the planet,” said the former chairman of the Kisii Stone Carvers Cooperative Society.

During the six-week China symposium, Ong’esa produced a 10- foot tall bronze sculpture entitled ‘Her Mother’ which still stands today in the Changchun Public Park.