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.
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