Adam Yawe
Adam Yawe is an object storyteller living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. His practice traverses digital and physical mediums with the ultimate goal of crafting objects that tell stories and telling stories about objects.
He grew up skateboarding on the streets of Nairobi and was trained as a biomedical engineer though he never practiced, immediately choosing to define his own way of working, jumping across mediums and materials but always in service of the concept. Skateboarding is a practice of reimagining urban infrastructure, this is where Adam's practice departs from, engaging with the city and seeking out ways to reimagine the objects and structure found within it.
His engineering training allows him to understand materials and processes, but instead of lending this to practicality, he uses this knowledge to engage with the hidden meanings these objects may contain and extrapolate metaphors from them which unfold into fictional narratives that expound on the hidden potential of these objects. After which he returns them to the world both conceptually and as reimagined physical objects.
He is currently and continuously assembling these narratives and objects into an online archive called Vitu vya Sanaa. Which is an attempt to develop a canon of aesthetics and ideas from which others may draw inspiration. In service of this same goal he has produced publications and organised and participated in public presentations with the goal of sharing these object stories with the audience he finds most relevant (residents of and visitors to the city of Nairobi), these include presentations at the University of Nairobi and the Nairobi National Museum.
He grew up skateboarding on the streets of Nairobi and was trained as a biomedical engineer though he never practiced, immediately choosing to define his own way of working, jumping across mediums and materials but always in service of the concept. Skateboarding is a practice of reimagining urban infrastructure, this is where Adam's practice departs from, engaging with the city and seeking out ways to reimagine the objects and structure found within it.
His engineering training allows him to understand materials and processes, but instead of lending this to practicality, he uses this knowledge to engage with the hidden meanings these objects may contain and extrapolate metaphors from them which unfold into fictional narratives that expound on the hidden potential of these objects. After which he returns them to the world both conceptually and as reimagined physical objects.
He is currently and continuously assembling these narratives and objects into an online archive called Vitu vya Sanaa. Which is an attempt to develop a canon of aesthetics and ideas from which others may draw inspiration. In service of this same goal he has produced publications and organised and participated in public presentations with the goal of sharing these object stories with the audience he finds most relevant (residents of and visitors to the city of Nairobi), these include presentations at the University of Nairobi and the Nairobi National Museum.