Displaying items by tag: Kenya

Odoch Pido and Donna Pido

Abstract

This article arose from a series o accidental and unrelated events in the preparation and for  conference on AI and ….. at the Technical University of Kenya in November 2024.  The original focus on Visual Culture was diminished by the arrival of Artificial Intelligence as an overwhelming new factor in all academic disciplines.  In addition, the massive retirement of academic staff at all Kenyan public universities has left a lot of curious people asking for more information on AI that no one seems to have.  Our concentration on VisCult and AI have been modified to include the hot topics in the Development Field today.  These are sustainability of any and all development efforts and a general, urgent concern with the development of livelihoods for an ever-growing, perhaps out of control human population. 

Here we try to grapple with the concepts of AI, sustainability, livelihoods and development in general in relation to our professional discipline, Design, focusing on Visual Culture. We approach this complex and dynamic mix of subjects from the perspectives of two very experienced designers, one, an experienced educator/administrator and the other a research Anthropologist.  One is an East African from both Uganda and Kenya and the other a New Yorker of many years’ residence in Kenya . Our conference presentation drew from our lived experience, along with academic learning, reference to associates and existing literature.  

We coauthors bring on board the diverse views of East Africans of many cultural backgrounds plus our own. We write in American with extensive reverence to the languages and concepts of several other cultures, notably Acholi.

If this article has an objective, it must be to make sense of an ever-changing professional and personal environment in which the old goes out while the new grapples for coherence and clarity.  Artificial Intelligence is coming into its own and we humans must learn how to use it constructively and sustainably

Turkana Design: A Roomance with Conic Sections

The Turkana people are camelcattle and goat people living in North Westen Kanya. They are belived to be connected to the Karamojong Cluster of ethnic communities.  Most of the Turkana's material culture is based on and or decorated with hyberboloiids in one and two sheets and with hyperbolic parabolioids, all in 2 or three dimensions. . Having studied this material culture for several decades, the author describes it and her efforts to find meanings and Turkana understandig of why they make everything from conic sections including non functional surface decoration.  A small sample of baffled Turkanas have pointed our that they never noticed the phenomenon until it was pointed out to them.  A great deal of research remains to be cone on the subject. 

Colour, Pattern and Ethnic Identity in 20^th Century Kenya

By Donna Pido, PhD. 

Associate professor, retired, Department of Design and Creative Media, The Technical University of Kenya

Abstract

This article focuses on the trickle of brightly colored, durable, modular glass beads that became a tsunami by 1902 and enabled highly creative Kenyan women (and a few men), driven by the constant frenzy of change we call ‘fashion’ to develop visual statements of their own beliefs, history, ethnicity and intragroup social status.  By the mid 20^th century all of the many ethnic communities including the Europeans and Asians in Kenya had voluntarily and spontaneously assorted themselves with defining colour and pattern codes.  There is inadequate published information on this subject.  In this article/chapter, the author cherry picks what she has learned, observed and experienced through structured and unstructured research over 53 years from the Maasai, Kisii, Luo, Mijikenda, Kamba, Tharaka, Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Turkana communities.  It all points in the direction of much needed further research on this definitive period in the history of Kenyan visual culture and the details of its many trajectories.

This article contains information relevant to studying how people deal with health challenges. It also documents dual agendas among collaborators and the community. It is a cautionary tale for planners of health and other interventions. Its late publication is connected to the life spans and public knowledge of two of the collaborators who, over time, have become neutralized. The purpose of this paper is to recount and elucidate a project to enhance the messages of initiation among Abagusii community in Kenya. The methodology was operational and experimental, intended to determine efficacy and guide future interventions. The experimental intervention was highly successful. The managers were corrupt and misappropriated the funding. Future projects may succeed with proper financial controls. Donors and project designers or implementers should find ways to ensure the integrity of their work.