Some weekend’s iN Nairobi’s art world…everything happens. This is one of those weekends…so we’ve put everything in one place for you.


EVENTS


Artist Talk: Tahir Karmali | Circle Art Gallery | Friday 19 September | 3-5pm

Working across an array of mediums, Tahir Karmali’s work dances through the visceral, the emotional and the intimate. Karmali’s expansive material-oriented practice employs photography, installation, paper making, sculpture and sound concentrates. Using these media, he explores notions of migration, landscape and geology, labour and belonging.


Artist Talk & Panel Discussion | Scopt: Fragments of Becoming | Holmes à Court Gallery, Afrika House | Friday 19 September | 6-9pm

Afrika House is delighted to invite you to the closing of Kenyan painter @karanjakiuru(Scopt) exhibition Fragments of Becoming. This special evening will feature an artist talk and panel discussion reflecting on the exhibition’s journey and its exploration of transformation, resilience, and cultural identity.

Through conversation with the artist and invited speakers, we will revisit the themes of rupture, reflection, and re-formation, offering deeper insight into Karanja’s practice. This is an opportunity to engage directly with the artist’s process, inspirations, and the broader dialogue his work invites. Come connect, reflect, and be part of this closing moment.

Art Therapy for Suicide prevention Awareness | Location shared upon RSVP| Friday 19 September | 6pm

A healing evening of painting on canvas, guided conversations, snacks, and soulful connection. 🍪✨BYOD (Bring Your Own Drink) 🍷 Let’s create, connect and honor the journey. Ksh 2000 Pay to: +254715956950. Ticket includes canvas, painting materials & snacks + the energy of connection & creativity.


Red Link: Cultual Soirée | Munyu Space | Friday 19 September

A cultural celebration of Ethiopian food, music and art at Munyu Space in conjunction with Tizzita Tefera’s solo exhibition Red Link. More information on ticketing will be available @shybunasprice. Exhibition information below.


ArtisTalk: Collins Brian Odhiambu & Jim Chuchu | RIKA25: Generations & Memories, Hazina Trade Centre | Friday 19 September | 4-6pm

Join this conversation with dancer/choreographer/movement maker @collinbrianoh and visual artist/musician @jimchuchu. This event is FREE and OPEN TO ALL as part of the RIKA25 Generations & Memories Exhibition. For more information see @dreamkona.ke


Mini Quilt Exhibition | Provisioins | Opening reception Friday 19 September | 4-5pm | Until end September

Over 3 months, members of the Kenya Quilt Guild were invited to take on a mini-quilt challenge. Members had to create a quilt sized 24 inches square, composed using Foundation Paper Piecing technique. This involves using paper geometric designs that sewists will attach fabric onto, often creating intricate geometric designs. Eleven members successfully completed the project, and these will be on display until the end of September. On the opening afternoon reception you can meet the quilters, learn more about their creative process and hear about other projects they are passionate about creating. DM @provisionske to RSVP for the opening reception.


Drip or Drown | CTHRU | The Living Rooms | Saturday 20  September | 4pm – midnight

A picture book by CTHRU — where Kanairo’s grit meets Dublin’s spirit. This is more than pages and photos — it’s a bridge. Nairobi to Dublin traces the energy of a city in motion, the people shaping its pulse, and the connections stretching across oceans. From Kanairo’s grit to Dublin’s spirit, it’s culture breaking borders. 🎟️ Tickets now live on Mookh.com — secure your spot and be part of the wave.


Creative Arena Art Exhibition  + Live Art Competition| Shah Houses, Ngara | Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 |11am – 5pm September

A live art competition on Saturday & an exhibition showcasing the artwork on Sunday. The exhibition will also be open Thursday 25th & Friday 26th from 11am – 6pm + Saturday 27th 11am – 4pm.


Closing & Performance | Tizzita Tefera: Red Link | Munyu Space | Saturday 20 September | 2pm

Red Link closes, the thread unbinds.
We gather, to honor the sacred ending.
Whisper your farewells, lay down your gratitude,
open your hands to the new.
Melkam Menged a ritual of endings,
a summoning of beginnings.
Come. Step into the circle.

Read our article about Red Link.


Artist Talk: Jonathan Sölanke Gathaara Fraser with Brian Muraya | The African Arts Trust | Saturday 20 September | 2-4pm

Karibuni to an artist talk between Jonathan Fraser and Brian Muraya gathered under the most recent exhibition ‘Forms of Fray’. This talk intends to open up ‘fray’ and its forms, while through the conversation further folding and figuring this word ‘fray’ towards the work on show, the personal places and memories condensed within it, as well as the possible goodness of dissolution, of forgetting, of fraying. The artist talk will be streamed by @calotropis.xyz on <calotropis.xyz>


Growing Up – An Evening of Short Films | RIKA25: Generations & Memories, Hazina Trade Centre

| Saturday 20 September | 6 -9pm

This event is FREE and OPEN TO ALL. For more information see @dreamkona.ke


Resonancias | Macondo Literary Festival | Kenya National Theatre | Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 September

An exhibition that creates a space for dialogue and cultural exchange between Kenya and Colombia. This exhibition is part of the Macondo Literary Festival. Through the works of seven Colombian artists, the exhibition weaves ancestral knowledge, everyday practices, and contemporary art into a cartography that resonates with memory, identity, and justice—while imagining radical futures. Come experience symbolism, ritual, botany, Black geographies, and hybrid identities as art, literature, and creation become languages of resistance, re-signification, and hope.

Exhibition walks: Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st at 11.30 am and 3.30 pm for 30 minutes

The artists: Diego Balanta (@balantaisdl), Dayro Carrasquilla (@dayrocarrasquilla), Laura Campaz (@materiaoscurx), Joyce Rivas (@joycerivasmedina), María Méndez (@mariamendez.art), Julieth Morales (@injuliethmor), Fatoumata Diabaté (@fdiabate), El Murcy (@elmurcy_). Co- curated by @kitambo.co in collaboration with @javierortizcassiani


Time Travel Through the Lens: The work of Peter Kariuki | Westlands | Sunday 21 September

In conjunction with RIKA25, an exploration of images taken in Nairobi from the 70s by our one and only mzee Peter Kariuki. Renown for his vintage look, rarely missing in exhibitions Mzee Peter Kariuki holds an archive of people, things and the evolution of space as Nairobi has evolved since the 70s. From musicians, dancers and painters, he has hung out and photographed them all having himself been a DJ at some point in his journey, an actor too if we consider the cameo in @maialekow Jellyfish video. Private view, limited slots link on @atcuriocity bio or click here.


Creative Arena | Shah Houses, Ngara | Saturday 20 September | 1pm onwards

Creative Arena is a live art competition where 12 artists go head to head until only one artist is left standing! The audience will vote on who moves on to each round and the eventual winner. There will then be a silent auction for the pieces made on the day. Works on view Sunday 21 September + 27, 28 September, as well.


Art Looking Through the Tea Fields | Chloe Mitchell | The Fig & Olive Cafe, Tigoni | Opening reception Saturday 20 September | Until 28 September

New artist on the Kenyan scene, Kenyan-born Chloe Mitchell presents her current series of works.


Art Auction Weekend | ILU Kilimani Campus | Friday 19 September, 5 – 9.30pm | Saturday 20 September | 9am-1pm

Theme: Art for Integrity. Come see, connect, and network with fellow art lovers.
Bid and take home art pieces that carry purpose; each one supports a greater cause—our Kitengela campus development.
Bring your family and children for a fun, hands-on morning of painting, bonding, and creating art that you will take home and cherish. No artistic experience needed, just come and celebrate creativity, community, and purpose.
For directions and more information call us on 0794 811247


ONGOING EXHIBITIONS


Group Exhibition | Article 2050, Karen Village | Until 20 September

Over 50 pieces by both emerging and established artists. Experience the soul of the artists – discover, connect and own original art. Free entry. Open daily 10am – 5pm.


The Seed Within, 2025 – Priya Shah

Energy Never Lies | Prina Shah | One Off Gallery | Until 21 September

“Energy Never Lies” was inspired by a series of questions that emerged from my earlier body of work, the Divine Feminine. Questions that further investigate the true nature of the self through the lens of energy. Through these investigations, Shah invites the audience to explore their own frequency, energy, vibration, and the information received. To question, if you could harness this energy, what would your desired reality look like?

Osiris, 2016 – Talitha Puri Negri

My Secret Life of Red | Talitha Puri Negri | One Off Gallery | Until 21 September

Negri says she is intrigued by red, as it is a colour that affects the human psyche. Studies have shown that waitresses who wear red are more likely to receive bigger tips from men. Olympians who wear red in combat sports, statistically have an edge over their opponents. “Over the years I have subconsciously, and later consciously, been documenting my contact with red. From the houses of my childhood in the Tuscan hills to the walls in the slum of Korogocho. Red resonates with identity, with love, with passion and all the feelings that are connected to our homes and people who live in them. Red is the colour of the Kenyan soil, of the country I have chosen to live in and that has made me the person I am today.”


Hope: Recent Paintings | Beatrice Wanjiku | One Off Gallery | Until 21 September

An informal showing of Wanjiku’s recent works.


Sudan: Exile & Hope | Alliance Française | Until 25 September

Through images, music & film, Focus Soudan celebrates culture and the unbreakable spirit of the Sudanese people. Art, memory & resistance all in one. In partnership with @nogara_project and @sudfa.media, two initiatives led by Sudanese artists and storytellers committed to preserving heritage, memory, and voices silenced by war and exile. Focus Sudan aims to celebrate Sudanese culture and highlight the enduring spirit of the Sudanese people through the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis.


Brikicho | Group Exhibition | Nairobi Art Gallery | Until 27 September

Over 30 Kenyan women artists have answered African Art Agenda’s @artstudionotes call, revealing works that challenge erasure and reclaim public space for their stories.

Brikicho—Swahili for hide-and-seek—has become a collective act of finding, seeing, and amplifying. And now, you can view the works and engage at Nairobi Gallery.


See Also

Ministry of Discovery | Mika Obanda | Until 28 September

A solo showcase of new works by Mika Obanda


Skin as a Noun, as a Verb | Tevin Noel | Sena Art X Under The Swahili Tree, Karen | Until 30 September

Tevin Noel is a self-taught visual artist whose practice explores transformation, identity, and the emotional terrain of becoming. Rooted in the symbolic language of trees and texture, his works evoke a poetic tension between solitude and self-renewal. Noel says, “We do not simply grow; we unravel, rebuild, and reimagine ourselves in pieces.” Through three phases; Deep Introspection, Attempts at Actual Change, and Taking Form, this exhibition invites viewers into a meditative space of self-examination. Here, “skin” becomes a metaphor for memory, rupture, and quiet emergence.


It Resonates | Group Exhibition | 50 GOLDBORNE X Heltz House, Ngara | Until 4 October | Every Thursday to Sunday from 2 – 6pm

“It Resonates” marks the first exhibition in Nairobi by London-based gallery 50 GOLBORNE. First shown privately at the TED Countdown (Climate) Global Summit in Nairobi (June 2025), “It Resonates” now opens to the wider public in Nairobi. It showcases the work of nine contemporary artists across the African continent. Drawing on the concept of “resonance” by German philosopher Hartmut Rosa—the charged interplay where self and world affect one another—the exhibition reveals how themes of sustainability and climate subtly infuse the works. Although the continent is the world’s least polluting, it is among the most affected by climate change. “It Resonates” responds not with imagery of catastrophe, but with artistic explorations of connection and transformation. .

Exhibiting Artists:
🇲🇦Safaa Erruas (@safaaerruas)
🇺🇬Sanaa Gateja (@gatejasanaa_official)
🇰🇪Martin Jakaila (@mjakaila)
🇧🇯Emo de Medeiros (@emo.de.medeiros)
🇰🇪Chemu Ng’ok (@chemungok)
🇺🇬Joseph Ntensibe (@josephntensibe)
🇺🇬Collin Sekajugo (@collin_sekajugo)
🇲🇬Temandrota (@temandrota)
🇰🇪Joseph Kamaru (@_kamaru_

In collaboration with @prithika.mohan (@weare.thestation) and @christine__hogendoorn (@lmnl_spaces).


Generations & Memories | Hazina Trade Towers (formerly Nakumatt Lifestyle), CBD | Until 9 October

Generations & Memories is a month-long exhibition and series of events featuring new work, performances, publications, discussions, participatory expression and more. Generations & Memories explores connections, not just with each other, but across generations and the historical boundaries of those that came before us. Together we explore this entanglement, asking: What do we want to pass on? What do we remember? What do we forget? What legacies do we carry and which to let go?


Hang Me Between Your Windows | Tahir Karmali | Circle Art Gallery | Until 16 October

Working across an array of mediums, Kenyan-born, NYC-based Tahir Karmali’s work dances through the visceral, the emotional and the intimate. Karmali’s expansive material-oriented practice employs photography, installation, paper making, sculpture and sound concentrates. Using these media, he explores notions of migration, landscape and geology, labour and belonging.


Forms of Fray | Anita Kavochy, Jonathan Sölanke, Gathaara Fraser, Liz Kobusinge & Darlyne Komukama | The African Arts Trust | Opening Friday 15 August, 6pm-8pm. | Until 18 October

“Forms of Fray” brings together four artists whose practices explore the intimate interplay between memory and materiality, where the act of remembering is embedded in the textures, forms, and gestures of the work. Committed to paper not only as a surface, but as a carrier of meaning, and trace, their work is shaped by an attention to the processes of material, to what is gathered, altered, and left incomplete — imbuing what arrives with a material poetics: of fibres that hold, edges that unravel, forms that resist closure.

Liz Kobusinge crafts paper by hand, embedding the labour of making into each sheet, and together with sound artist Darlyne Komukama they print onto this paper, working the seams of collaboration in a way both tactile and conceptual. Kavochy gathers: discarded newspapers, fragments of public memory, overlaying them with painted scenes that disturb while reassembling what remains. Jonathan Fraser’s delicate drawings, rendered in watercolour, sit lightly on the surface, as if to mark without claiming.

The exhibition proposes fray not as failure, but as method and measure. To suggest that no material, no memory, no body arrives whole, or remains so for long.


Looking Into the Mad Eye of History Without Blinking | Canon Griffin Rumanzi | NCAI | Until 2 November

A solo exhibition by Ugandan artist Canon Griffin Rumanzi, curated by Trevor Mukholi. The exhibition confronts the turbulent and fragmented narratives of Uganda’s past and their ongoing echoes in the present.

Through digital collage and archival intervention, Griffin layers colonial records, state symbols, family portraits, and everyday images to create a visual language of fracture, one that refuses easy containment or simplified stories. His work challenges us to look directly, without blinking, at the contradictions of history and the unresolved complexities that shape our collective memory.


Photography Exhibtion | Teti Sulu & Trevor Maingi | Good Grain Bakery | Until 13 November

In The Last Ones, @tetisulu & @mustbe_tj turn their gaze towards Mount Kenya’s shifting landscape, treating it not simply as a backdrop but as a subject in its own right. The photographs, shot on film and the result of a demanding climb, resist immediacy. They insist on slowness: the patient tones of silver grain, the pauses for exposure, the weight of waiting for the developed negative. Rather than tell a single story, this body of work places human presence in dialogue with geological time, inviting us to reflect on the weight of change, and the delicate balance between permanence and transformation. Opening night RSVP is closed. RSVP Link for Sunday Gallery Day in @papercafe.nbo bio. Exhibition on view until 13 November.


Guardians of Memory | Njogu Kuria | Banana Hill Art Gallery | Until 28 November

​Explore the art of memory. Discover breathtaking sculptures crafted from rubber, vinyl, and metal—each piece tells a story of resilience, culture, and identity.

Open daily.