Post by anansi on Nov 1, 2018 6:38:04 GMT -5
The officials in suits arrived uninvited at Michael Soi’s studio located in the fringes of the industrial area of Nairobi. They were four men and two women, Chinese, and instantly started rifling through the stacks of artwork in the space and tossing paint cans around.
This was in 2015, a year during which China and Kenya were strengthening their bilateral relations with promises of working together in sectors as diverse as agriculture, infrastructural development,
tourism, besides peace and security. Soi, a veteran artist known for his politically and culturally charged pieces, said the group started “lecturing” him, chiding him for being “ungrateful” for China’s contributions to Kenya. Soi immediately asked them to leave his space.
The work at the center of this peculiar visit was Soi’s “China Loves Africa” collection: an eclectic assortment of 74 bold visual pieces that continue to interrogate China’s place in Africa. As Sino-African relations have grown over the last decade, China’s diplomatic, trade, military, and soft power efforts have increasingly come into sharp focus. Previously furtive about its investments and moves, Chinese officials are also increasingly countering the narrative that its approach to Africa, as some critics say, is purely based on “chopsticks mercantilism.”
qz.com/africa/1343155/michael-soi-china-loves-africa-paintings-question-chinas-influence-in-africa/
This story is dated, as it appeared in July this year, but I just chanced on it.
Pls goto the link for the full story and especially the art,disturbing as it is funny.
This was in 2015, a year during which China and Kenya were strengthening their bilateral relations with promises of working together in sectors as diverse as agriculture, infrastructural development,
tourism, besides peace and security. Soi, a veteran artist known for his politically and culturally charged pieces, said the group started “lecturing” him, chiding him for being “ungrateful” for China’s contributions to Kenya. Soi immediately asked them to leave his space.
The work at the center of this peculiar visit was Soi’s “China Loves Africa” collection: an eclectic assortment of 74 bold visual pieces that continue to interrogate China’s place in Africa. As Sino-African relations have grown over the last decade, China’s diplomatic, trade, military, and soft power efforts have increasingly come into sharp focus. Previously furtive about its investments and moves, Chinese officials are also increasingly countering the narrative that its approach to Africa, as some critics say, is purely based on “chopsticks mercantilism.”
qz.com/africa/1343155/michael-soi-china-loves-africa-paintings-question-chinas-influence-in-africa/
This story is dated, as it appeared in July this year, but I just chanced on it.
Pls goto the link for the full story and especially the art,disturbing as it is funny.