Meet Cyrus Kabiru, one of the many contemporary artists whose work is featured in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.
Born in Nairobi’s Korogocho—a neighborhood that borders the city’s largest garbage dump—Cyrus Kabiru as a child began creatively reusing the materials he salvaged, giving potentially obsolete items new meaning.
Part of a recent series, Miyale Ya Blue is one of the many transistor radios he has retrofitted. In an era when music and other media have migrated online, for Kabiru these objects not only elicit memories of gathering around his grandmother’s wireless to hear the news of the day but also are imbued with ancestral, spiritual powers that transport one imaginatively through space and time.
The details on this piece evoke the warming rays of the sun—"miyale" in Swahili. ☀️ 📻
Take a virtual tour of the exhibition to explore further.
Meet the Artists: Cyrus Kabiru
2 min. watch
Contributors
Managing Producer: Kate Farrell
Producer: Melissa Bell
Editor: Lela Jenkins
Graphic Design: Abby Chen
Music: Austin Fisher
Photographs: Paul Lachenauer
Special thanks: Cyrus Kabiru, Sarah Lawrence, Ian Alteveer, Ana Matisse Donefer-Hickie, Claire Lanier, Victoria Martinez, Sofie Andersen
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Art Mentioned
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Cyrus Kabiru
2020