We Eat Like a Team: Meet Vincent
Vincent on the founders who taught him and the day he met the Maasai.
Vincent introduces himself as a conceptual artist who does performances and installations, and a driver as well. He had been a member of Maasai Mbili (M2) for six years, and was 30 years old in 2019 when this interview was taped.
“I love being part of Maasai Mbili because we work with the kids in the community and the people around us. We try to change the perspective of their thinking about art. We do it through art to tell the story of who we are. When they grow, they should know art is so diverse.”
Gomba and Kota, Maasai Mbili Co-founders
Those six years had taken him into Nairobi’s galleries and art centers such as Kuona Trust and the German and French cultural institutes.
“Those guys, Gomba, Kota, it’s so nice being with those guys, because they taught me a lot.”
Gomba and Kota founded Maasai Mbili in 2001. Gomba tells that story in What is Maasai Mbili? Meet Gomba.
We Eat Like a Team
Miriam asked him where he turns when life gets hard.
“We are, like, always together. Sometimes even when I’m hungry and I don’t have some cash to eat, I go to someone like Gomba or Kota.”
“When we have something small, we eat like a team. You contribute, you contribute, you contribute, and then we place the food, and we share it together and we enjoy it.”
You contribute, you contribute, you contribute.
M2 members share jobs, materials, money and food. Miriam said,
“This is the mentality, this is the thinking of the people here in Kibera and Maasai Mbili. There’s nothing that’s selfish. It’s all about community. It’s about supporting each other.”
Meeting the Maasai
Vincent travelled with Miriam and two other M2 artists to meet a group of Maasai people for the first time.
“You’ve made me meet some new people. Like our trip to Naivasha, while I was driving, I met so many people who I haven’t met, and I’ve known new things. We went to Olepolos… I met the Maasai community. I like them so much. And about the dancers too, when we talk to them and saw what they were doing, it was so cool.”
That visit to Olepolos is where TGG’s Maasai Well Project began. Miriam handed her business card to the dancers. Ole Morio, a Maasai dancer, carried his card home about 150 km away, and it ended up in the hands of a teacher named Isaiah. In 2022, Vincent went to the villages with a group of M2 artists to document the water crisis in person.
A Great Gathering
The day before we filmed Vincent, the collective had cooked a meal for the neighborhood. The Great Gathering paid for the food and the M2 artists put on the party. He brought it up himself, at the end, when he was asked what he wanted to say to the world.
“Like yesterday, the Great Gathering. You saw how the people were so happy, the food. Some of them even didn’t know what was happening, but it was a great gathering. So they gathered with us, and we shared what they get.”
In Kibera, Maasai Mbili continues its art and their community service. They share.
Maasai Mbili Art Collective’s model works.
M2 recruits young people from the street and teach them to make art. They teach the community what art is and how it can support an artist. The art collective’s members share jobs, materials and what they earn — so when one artist gets work, the others eat.
We feel the community they support and the collective itself would benefit more if they had a website and a platform to sell their art directly to the world. This would also provide a platform to share their performing arts. There’s an ongoing need for art supplies, as well as the need for support with ongoing expenses like internet and phone service. Additionally there’s a need for laptops and equipment to stream live.