My Ndauo (Maasai) Series involved me imagining the Maasai in different ways. They are commonly depicted as village people covered with shukas herding livestock. I imagined them otherwise (in an Afrofuturistic approach).
Mad Ndauo shows the beauty of raw emotion. Whether positive or negative, emotion is emotion. Emotion is beautiful. Some believe that love and hate are the same emotion. They claim that in order to hate someone, you must first love them.
All in all, emotion, much like pain, reminds us of our ‘aliveness’. We feel elated and light when we are happy or excited. We feel heavy and depressed whenever we are unhappy. We feel disturbed inside when we are frustrated and we feel hot when we are angry.
Mad Ndauo (despite him being in a negative mood) is a beautiful work of art in how it shows authenticity. It is easy to fool one with a well-practised smile or phrase, but it is near impossible to hide your true emotions. Even if one smiles when angry, something will be amiss. A depressed person’s smile is very different from an excited person’s smile.
Pure, unfiltered emotion is what brings us closer, or drives us farther, as people. Bonds in relationships are much stronger after a rough patch, families tighten their bonds after having gone through a hard time together (e.g. the loss of a loved one) among the many other instances when going through a hard time has had a positive influence in the end.
Thus, being sensitive is being extra alive.
Another Ndauo from my Ndauo Series. He is representative of the good health, calm and peace of mind that is resultant of nature.
Nature serves as a source of inspiration, health, beauty and life. Nature gives food (fruits, vegetables, nuts, animal products), nature heals (it is said that the green colours found in nature relax the eyes, thus slowly healing short and long sightedness) and nature relaxes or calms the nerves. The birdsongs heard in forests place one at ease.
As humans, we can make a conscious choice to either destroy or preserve nature: which in reality is a choice to either preserve ourselves or do away with ourselves. Man’s biggest mistake is that he thinks himself different from nature and its ecosystem.
Ndauo Herbal is representative of being in touch with Mother Nature. His relaxed eyes show that he is at ease whilst listening to birdsong, the sound of water running over rocks, the sound of waterfalls and also that he is feeling great in health due to eating all the green, healthy foods that nature has offer.
Not to mention, due to the risk of extinction of lions, the Maasai shifted their rite of passage from having to kill a lion to having to save a lion. Now one can come across images of Maasai people walking alongside these beautiful big cats on the internet.
Instead of thinking ourselves superior due to our advanced technology and whatnot, Ndauo Herbal is here to remind us of the bond that every living being has with nature.
There are many ways to tell stories in African cultures: orally, via song through griots and even masks. Inspired by how masks tell stories, I created my own.
The illustration depicts the face of a young African man with black hair and a beard. His eyes are closed and his lips are in a slight smile. His name is Oyami. Much like all young people, he had dreams to accomplish great things. However, he was very shy.
His father often teased him saying that he wouldn’t be able to get a wife. That would only make him shyer. To him, his shyness was a big impediment to his progress as an individual. He wished to do great things, he wished to express himself, but he was finding it very difficult.
One day his grandmother said a sentence to him that stirred his soul, “Great people in reality only accomplish one great thing; they become the best versions of themselves.”
With a troubled mind that sought answers, Oyami set out to the forest to contemplate, meditate and commune with his ancestors. How was he to become the best version of himself? Who was he in the first place?
After nine days of deep meditation, he came to a realization: in order to move forward, you first have to go back.
In order to find an answer that would propel him forward, he first had to go back to his ancestors for guidance and wisdom.
He wasn’t just Oyami. He was part of a lineage of men and women who had already accomplished great things. He was already great by default.
My name is Felix Attari. I am a student of Product and Industrial Design at The Technical University of Kenya. My philosophy is ‘create your own reality’. Reality is relative. It all depends on the lens the viewer uses to see it through. Day by day, I am slowly and carefully crafting out my reality.