Q &A
STORIES OF OUR LIVES (AND THE POLITICS OF TELLING A Q&A with The NEST & Q-zine OUR OWN STORIES) byStillsOurSpaceIsLove by NEST
Q
: Tell us about The NEST, who the people behind it are and when was it formed.
The NEST is a community of artists and audiences interested in alternative thought, as well as music, film and theater production collective. It existed as a mental space long before we got physical premises in late 2012, (we turn 2 this year!) co-founded by George Gachara (the film’s executive producer) and Jim Chuchu (the film’s director). The core production team consists of 10 multidisciplinary creatives.
Q
: It is refreshing to see that Kenyans produced this film – that it is about your own queer community with the financial backing of an African foundation, so many firsts… Tell us about the politics of Kenyans representing your own communities through this lens. Why now? Why this film?
36 | Issue 10, December 2014
We made the film as part of a body of creative work to counter pervasive anti-gay sentiments that populate mainstream media. These narratives where LGBTI individuals are demonized, pathologised or reduced to initials representing “key populations” for NGO reports - are unacceptably dehumanizing. One common tactic is to present LGBTIQ issues as being “imported from the West”, yet everything in our lived experiences and everything that we learned in our documentation project refutes that idea. African – and with regard to Stories Of Our Lives, Kenyan LGBTIQ people originate, live, love and exist in the same spaces as all other Africans and Kenyans. We wanted to tell these stories of the queer experience in Kenya that are seldom heard and routinely erased. We were also aware that their collection and telling by Africans, for Africans, was essential. After archiving over 250 individual accounts from cities and towns all over Kenya, the