Youth Living in Kibera, One of Africa's Largest Urban Slums, Exhibit in Tokyo as 'Subjects Who Tell Their Own Stories'

As part of the 'CRAWL' program for art workers at the art center BUG (operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.), a project by Migi Sakata, Co-CEO of Kotatsu Co., Ltd. and Representative Director of the NPO Shift Eighty, has been selected. The exhibition, titled 'Viewing the World from Kibera "Slum" - From Being Told, to Telling Our Own Story,' will open on April 25, 2026.

In this exhibition, youth living in Kibera, a massive slum in Nairobi, Kenya, will challenge the image of the slum as a 'subject being told about' and stand up as 'subjects who tell their own stories' through photos and videos they have captured themselves.

When asked about their future dreams, many of these young people answer 'journalist' because of their experience of being marginalized by society and their strong will to carve out a future despite adversity. Triggered by donated cameras and technical guidance from professional photographers and filmmakers, they began to record their lives, joys, sufferings, work, and hopes. This is not merely a record, but the very process of acquiring the 'power to speak,' and an act of redefining the image of the 'slum'—which has been unilaterally consumed by external perspectives—by their own hands.

The exhibition will feature over 100 works, including commentary videos by the artists themselves. During the exhibition, there will be opportunities for 'dialogue,' such as allowing visitors to ask questions to the youth in Kibera and receive replies later, creating a space where a 'reciprocal exchange of stories' can occur between the subjects and the audience. By bringing the perspective of a Kenyan slum, far removed from the center of Tokyo, into the white cube of BUG, this is an attempt to re-examine the fundamental power and joy of 'expression.'

Highlights

1. Rediscovery from Labeled Landscapes

The word 'slum' may evoke stereotypical images of poverty, crime, and hopelessness for many. However, within the places lumped together by that word, there are diverse moments of human activity, joy, and pride. In this exhibition, artists born and raised in Kibera express their daily lives and the stories they want to tell from their own perspectives. Some works include scripts written and produced by the artists themselves.

Kibera is a globally known massive urban slum, and while famous international artists have created work there before, this exhibition focuses on the residents themselves becoming the subjects who tell their own stories, rather than treating Kibera as 'material' or a 'stage.' It is an attempt to re-examine landscapes that have been told through external gazes, through expression from the inside.

2. The Brilliance of Expression Born Amidst Constraints

Many of the exhibiting artists do not own their own cameras or computers, creating their work with equipment rented with limited personal funds and under restricted data usage. They often lack storage to save high-resolution data and do not have an environment where they can easily save many works in high resolution. Therefore, some exhibited works may show variations in image quality or editing. However, this is not due to a lack of individual skill or motivation, but rather differences in production conditions such as available equipment, software, and communication environments.