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John Diang’a Obaso talks to ArtMatters.Info in Kisumu
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PROMOTING ARTS DESPITE THE ODDS
At the prime age of 45, Kenyan artist and art instructor, John Diang’a Obaso, resigned from his teaching job to concentrate on running a cultural centre he had set up in the remote part of a country where professionals prefer spending Sh6 million (US$75000) on a four-wheel drive luxury vehicle to buying a Sh10000 (US$125) painting. It was inconceivable how this man could abandon a stable career with a sure income for the unknown.
Fifteen years later, Diang’a is going against the grain again: he is calling for the establishment of an arts centre in Kisumu close to his Maseno-based Esiapala Cultural Centre.ArtMatters.Info‘s Ogova Ondego caught up with Diang’a in Kisumu in June 2005 during the maiden Lake Victoria Festival of the Arts, LAFESTA, where he talked about his vision and involvement in the contemporary arts of East Africa as a trainer, practitioner, collector and researcher.
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Pharmacist revives ailing pan African gallery
After training in pharmacy and dispensing drugs for seven years in the United States, Makena Mwiraria turned her back on this lucrative career in favour of the arts.Neither the razing of her African crafts shop in the Virgin Islands by Hurricane Hugo nor discouragement from
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East African Painter Made by a Poet 
He has turned an otherwise posh suite in a Nairobi up-market apartment into an art studio. “He taught me how to write my name,” he says of the late David Cook who co-authored with David Rubadiri, the anthology titled Poems From East Africa, holding a painting he says took .......Full article |
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Healing through Art
As one enters Kenyatta National Hospital, one is greeted by WAHU, a mother figure giving a convivial atmosphere to the institution and meant to help hasten the healing process of patients and comfort anxious people over the health of their loved ones. Standing at East Africa’s leading referral and teaching health institution.......Full article |
Former French ambassador to open Kenyan art gallery in Paris 
After serving three years as ambassador in Kenya, Pierre Jacquemot returned home on November 14, 2003 with one thing in mind: to open a gallery dealing in Kenyan art in the French mecca of arts and........Full article |
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