Finding Space.
By Gloria Mwivanda.
My only resolution for 2025 was to have my own space to be creative and lose.
Picha Profile mwivandagloria
As I write this, I am the proud and very fretful owner of a lovely little shared studio in Nairobi. Proud because I have a studio and I still cannot believe it, fretful because all I have is four walls of a room and my camera, so where do we go from here?
It feels freeing to be surrounded by these walls, the emptiness feels satisfying and I find myself wholly present. I wander in and out of the rooms, I sit on the lawn and lie on a palm leaves mat on the floor. It seems the world is my oyster, but where do I start? I keep reminding myself that the path will form itself and all I have to do is take the next step and everything else will align. So I clean up and hang up some masks on the wall. I tell all my friends and family that I finally have a studio space. I already have some shoot bookings, in May and June… I need to pay the bills in February, but January is a slow and hard month for everyone, so I will need to find other sources of income for the space. Sigh, looks at already dry savings reserves.
Picha Profile mwivandagloria
I might be way in over my head but, I have a studio! That’s a start. I look forward to my stock photos production tremendously increasing with a diverse indoor and outdoor setting. I will get to shoot clients and models and experiment more with studio lights. I will even host small exhibitions and conversations on photography and art, so I’m excited but mostly scared.
Slowly a community begins to build around me, filled with encouragement and support.
Slowly a community begins to build around me, filled with encouragement and support. Collaborations and partnerships are built, it indeed does take a village, I have come to learn. To build, to grow and to sustain life in any energy or form or space. Moreover, it takes a village to write (or rather, rewrite) a narrative. There’s a need for wisdom from the artists before me, there’s a need for peers to challenge me, encourage me, partner and collaborate with me. There’s a need for the community to consume and interact and drive forward the stories I create and give them a life of their own. Everyone makes a piece of a puzzle that eventually comes together to form a complete picture.
In this puzzle, the pieces have to come together one piece at a time and this will take time. One step at a time. I am now more excited to witness the artist I will be this time next year and the life that will have been created and lived in this space.
Picha Profile mwivandagloria
This space is holding me, to be free and open-minded in living and experiencing my art and creativity, I open its doors and invite the community to come and be held in the safety of the energy in the space been these walls, in open conversation, in seeing themselves through my photography and in finding themselves in their contribution to and existence on the space.
