Ask the Author: The Nest Collective
Answered Questions (6)
The Nest Collective
We live and work in Nairobi, Kenya, and this city alone is a chaotic, beautiful, terrible mess of dust, traffic jams and the Love of Money. That, and exploring who we are here in this moment at this time and in this space, who we want to be, who we have been, who we could be, as Kenyans, Africans, Black, Queer, Other, and all the other things we are and choose to be - all of that - is an endless source of inspiration.
For Stories of Our Lives in particular - we began exploring the Kenyan queer experience because in 2013, the Ugandan parliament had been very public about exploring their Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and the homophobic current was beginning to come our way in Kenya. Many people were saying, "Homosexuality is unAfrican." We knew for ourselves, as a collective of diverse origins, orientations etc - that queer people in Kenya were as Kenyan as they were queer, so that statement was not only 100% false, but patently ridiculous. However, in the Kenyan public eye there were only isolating and stigmatising public health hysterias, gossip scandals outing various people, soap-opera comedic stereotypes and varied harmful unhelpful narratives about African LGBTI people. Further to that, many documentations of African queerness have unfortunately been done by non-Africans with non-African lenses.
We wanted to collect stories of every day life - love, interactions with families, friends, workplaces and religion, childhood memories, coming out, hopes for the future etc, and present the Kenyan queer experience as one of people - nuanced, complex and human. Far beyond the nonsense and shallowness of the lazy, homophobic mainstream. That is what inspired this book.
For Stories of Our Lives in particular - we began exploring the Kenyan queer experience because in 2013, the Ugandan parliament had been very public about exploring their Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and the homophobic current was beginning to come our way in Kenya. Many people were saying, "Homosexuality is unAfrican." We knew for ourselves, as a collective of diverse origins, orientations etc - that queer people in Kenya were as Kenyan as they were queer, so that statement was not only 100% false, but patently ridiculous. However, in the Kenyan public eye there were only isolating and stigmatising public health hysterias, gossip scandals outing various people, soap-opera comedic stereotypes and varied harmful unhelpful narratives about African LGBTI people. Further to that, many documentations of African queerness have unfortunately been done by non-Africans with non-African lenses.
We wanted to collect stories of every day life - love, interactions with families, friends, workplaces and religion, childhood memories, coming out, hopes for the future etc, and present the Kenyan queer experience as one of people - nuanced, complex and human. Far beyond the nonsense and shallowness of the lazy, homophobic mainstream. That is what inspired this book.
The Nest Collective
We live and work in Nairobi, Kenya, and this city alone is a chaotic, beautiful, terrible mess of dust, traffic jams and the Love of Money. That, and exploring who we are here in this moment at this time and in this space, who we want to be, who we have been, who we could be, as Kenyans, Africans, Black, Queer, Other, and all the other things we are and choose to be - all of that - is an endless source of inspiration.
For Stories of Our Lives in particular - we began exploring the Kenyan queer experience because in 2013, the Ugandan parliament had been very public about exploring their Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and the homophobic current was beginning to come our way in Kenya. Many people were saying, "Homosexuality is unAfrican." We knew for ourselves, as a collective of diverse origins, orientations etc - that queer people in Kenya were as Kenyan as they were queer, so that statement was not only 100% false, but patently ridiculous. However, in the Kenyan public eye there were only isolating and stigmatising public health hysterias, gossip scandals outing various people, soap-opera comedic stereotypes and varied harmful unhelpful narratives about African LGBTI people. Further to that, many documentations of African queerness have unfortunately been done by non-Africans with non-African lenses.
We wanted to collect stories of every day life - love, interactions with families, friends, workplaces and religion, childhood memories, coming out, hopes for the future etc, and present the Kenyan queer experience as one of people - nuanced, complex and human. Far beyond the nonsense and shallowness of the lazy, homophobic mainstream. That is what inspired this book.
For Stories of Our Lives in particular - we began exploring the Kenyan queer experience because in 2013, the Ugandan parliament had been very public about exploring their Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and the homophobic current was beginning to come our way in Kenya. Many people were saying, "Homosexuality is unAfrican." We knew for ourselves, as a collective of diverse origins, orientations etc - that queer people in Kenya were as Kenyan as they were queer, so that statement was not only 100% false, but patently ridiculous. However, in the Kenyan public eye there were only isolating and stigmatising public health hysterias, gossip scandals outing various people, soap-opera comedic stereotypes and varied harmful unhelpful narratives about African LGBTI people. Further to that, many documentations of African queerness have unfortunately been done by non-Africans with non-African lenses.
We wanted to collect stories of every day life - love, interactions with families, friends, workplaces and religion, childhood memories, coming out, hopes for the future etc, and present the Kenyan queer experience as one of people - nuanced, complex and human. Far beyond the nonsense and shallowness of the lazy, homophobic mainstream. That is what inspired this book.
The Nest Collective
We're working on many things! One is a project on Kenyan fashion, the other is a pop exploration of urban life, and the other is a web series about a man with a vendetta against the people who did him wrong. (We have to be as vague as possible because we don't want to leak spoilers!) We're working to release these in the first half of 2016, and we will have books attached to all the projects. We're really looking forward to it!
The Nest Collective
We don't want to imagine we have any kind of formula because the ways in and through the creative process are so different for so many folks. What has worked for us, though, is 2 things, build around trust. We have to trust each other to be honest while we're mapping out new work. Honest with ourselves about why it should matter, and honest with each other about what works in the execution and what doesn't. And two, we're learning to trust our fear. If we're afraid of what a project can potentially do, or the questions and controversies it will raise, that's usually a good place.
The Nest Collective
2 ways work for our process - we'll either look wider around our themes or subject matter, to see if there is another way to look at our ideas that we haven't seen yet, or we'll put it on ice and work on something else. The breaks are healthy and allow the ideas to breathe a little :-) and we feel more refreshed when we tackle them again. It also helps that there is a bunch of us - and we'll not all be blocked at the same time, so some folks can keep thinking and working around one thing while others explore something else, and we just meet again a little later.
The Nest Collective
For us, the best thing is having the opportunity to publish as a group. It's long and slow, but there is such growth and magic in listening to each other, learning, having loud debates (and even fights!) and doing the work of changing our minds and evolving. The second best thing is having people tell us what was special about our work for them.
The Nest Collective
We started a documentary research project - which was called "Stories of Our Lives" from the beginning! - to document the lives of Kenyans who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex. We were interested in exploring queer consciousness, ambition and expression in daily interactions with family, friends, schools, workplaces, religions, ideas for the future and diverse social contexts.
We collected over 250 anonymous audio stories from 9 cities and towns in Kenya, and wanted to find a way to share them. One way we did so was with a film - we selected and shot 5 of the stories we had collected and presented them as an anthology of short vignettes - which has been seen around the world and been very warmly received. (You can read more about that here - http://bit.ly/1HrDfrg.) We then decided to present the greater part of this archive in the form of a book, and then selected and transcribed the interviews with some help from our friends. We only edited them to remove identifying details - the stories here are exactly as they were told to us. Stories of lovers, rebels and fighters.
We collected over 250 anonymous audio stories from 9 cities and towns in Kenya, and wanted to find a way to share them. One way we did so was with a film - we selected and shot 5 of the stories we had collected and presented them as an anthology of short vignettes - which has been seen around the world and been very warmly received. (You can read more about that here - http://bit.ly/1HrDfrg.) We then decided to present the greater part of this archive in the form of a book, and then selected and transcribed the interviews with some help from our friends. We only edited them to remove identifying details - the stories here are exactly as they were told to us. Stories of lovers, rebels and fighters.
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