Nairobi Fat Cap

Telling stories of African Social concerns in Graffiti VR to the metaverse and beyond.

About

Nairobi Fat Cap is a Fallohide initiative under the Craft Reality Effort, to train artists to make Graffiti Virtual Reality art with social action concern themes of their choosing. In partnership with JENGE KULTURE, Baraza Media, Alliance Française de Nairobi , CcHub, Creative Creative Economy Practice, iHub and Artivive.

Graffiti is often made without permission and within public view, a forbidden way to paint a picture of society. This is an art form that demands to be heard, to be seen. And with few African artists in the metaverse, Fallohide has made the effort to give access to VR equipment and training to artists and give them a new voice in the metaverse, to be heard and boldly be seen.

The Making of Nairobi Fat Cap

Watch the Making of Nairobi Cap;

Showcase

The participating artists showcased their VR Graffiti in AR (Augmented Reality) with an MR (Mixed Reality) performance at Baraza Media Lab on Friday 10th June 2022, from 2 PM to 4 PM.

Four visual artists based in Nairobi participated in the first cohort, creating Graffiti under four social action themes: Environment, Peace, Mental Health, and Justice.

We had quite the turn out! Watch the recap here;

Exhibition

We were invited to exhibit at the Alliance Française de Nairobi's NYrobi Book Fest on the 24 to the 26 of June 2022 to use Nariobi Fat Cap as case study for the future of print. We presented 'Mixed Realities; Future of Print. A Nairobi Fat Cap case study.' We demonstrated how publications can use Augmented Reality to make their books interesting and more educational and that artworks for publications and can be mad in a VR headset. Watch the highlights here;

Workshop

After an amazing showcase at Baraza Media, an exhibition at Alliance Française de Nairobi and TONS of requests, we had a Nairobi Fat Cap Workshop at iHub. We showed how VR Graffiti is made from conceptualizing to distributing the work. People got to try VR graffiti and go through a very condensed version of the training the artists went through.

The workshop showed Virtual Reality Graffiti in Augmented Reality with a Mixed Reality performance and demonstration. On the 2nd of July 2022 at 2:00 PM to 4:00PM at iHub, 6th Floor Senteu Plaza, Galana/Lenana Road, Nairobi, Kenya.

This was made possible also by Creative Economy Practice at CcHUB through Stawi Creative Spaces Project. The Stawi Creative Spaces at iHub will be hosted us for this event!

Presentation

The Metaverse Crew hosted us for one of their Thursday Meet ups on Discord. The Metaverse Crew is a a diverse and supportive community of artists, engineers, game makers, programmers, creatives, performers and musicians living in the metaverse. We presented the cohort, who have never touched a VR headset before Nairobi Fat Cap, to discuss their experience of spending more than 10 hours in Kingspray Graffiti, doing live Mixed Reality artworks, Augmented Reality and Graffiti distributing the work and finally showcasing the artworks and all the in-betweens.

Meet the artists!

Cynthia Jerono-Visual Artist

"Just like authors use words to burn through you, I use my art as a flaming spear-can go through anything. You look at it and you’re pierced straight to your soul. I am Painter and an Illustrator based in Nairobi. My work is an outlet of how I view the world and lets me explore myself and the feelings that come with being a human."

Follow their work; https://www.instagram.com/cj.kerich/

Conrad Kelemba-3D Artist and Interior Designer

"I have always believed that I may not be good at verbal communication, but I express myself visually very well. I have always been passionate about freehand drawing, as well as practising interior design, branding and 3D architectural rendering as a profession. I will always see the world as an empty canvas ready for some artistic strokes."

Follow their work; https://greyinnovation.co.ke/

Maria Gikuru-Visual Artist

"I am a visual artist; painter, ceramist, graphic designer and sketch artist. I want people to realize that there can be more ways of striving in life, by just expressing themselves through craft and creativity. I like working hard at refining these skills, conjuring new projects and testing unique approaches. Art can be a powerful tool to change perception, solve problems and give identity to anything and anyone."

Follow their work; https://www.behance.net/wamagi

Kelvin Malombe-Artivist

"Kelvin Malombe - preferably known as Malosh - is a Kenyan visual communicator, Artivist (Artist and Activist) and founder of PlusthreeGMT. Husband to 1(one). Father to 3(three). Xenophile. Lover of Green. The collaborative studio;+3GMT. empowers bold brands who care about social empowerment to make a prominent brand statement to the world."

Follow their work; https://www.linkedin.com/in/malombe-kelvin-110a0562/