Bebabebag

On the streets of Nairobi, matatu stops for the city’s minibus taxis are everywhere, and the conductors’ cries of “Beba beba!” (Swahili for “carry, carry”) ring out as they call to passengers. The phrase could be called a keyword for a Nairobi where transport is never simply taken for granted. All across the city, people carry astonishingly large loads with their bare hands. Seen from another angle, it starts to look almost like a festival, or a performance.

Inspired by these scenes of “carrying” so characteristic of Nairobi, the art project “Bebabebag” worked with craftspeople who sew matatu seat covers to create bags shaped like the enormous loads that move through the streets. Performers wearing these strange bags paraded through the roads, coloring the familiar cityscape anew. The festive mood latent in Nairobi’s everyday life was transformed into a new kind of fashion.