Kenyan sculptor turns scrap metal into art with a message

The sculptor has worked with recycled metal for 30 years.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kioko Mwitiki, 56, estimates he has transformed thousands of tonnes of discarded metal, from supermarket trolley wheels to shredded metal from factories, into art.

The sculptor has worked with recycled metal for 30 years but says rising concerns globally about pollution, over consumption and climate change make his work relevant now.

He said: "Recycling now has become a very important issue because you just need to be really in sync with what is happening. All this plastic in the air, all this plastic in the ocean, and also the idea about Africa being in a very unique space. We are on the receiving end, of a lot of pollution in the world."

Sometimes he draws attention to wildlife conservation, an issue close to his heart, with his choice of material.

For his lion sculptures, he transformed animal snares, used by illegal hunters in national parks and given to him by the Kenya Wildlife Service, into dramatic manes.

Mwitiki became an artist by accident after his older sister sent him to apprentice in a welder’s shop as punishment after he was expelled from university in 1986 for joining anti-government protests on campus.

In his spare time, he fashioned a few artistic objects from metal. He later found them displayed at a Nairobi gallery, after a broker bought them cheaply from him and sold them on. This led him to realise he could support himself as an artist.

Mwitiki’s childhood memories and concerns about growing conflict between animals and humans in his country inspired him to sculpt wildlife. He grew up south of Nairobi in the Rift Valley, where wildebeest once roamed vast plains.

"I grew up in an area where the migration was coming through, the wildebeest migration; in a place called Kajiado. That part of the migration does not exist anymore because if you study migration patterns, there was a pattern that used to go up north from Tanzania, to Namanga through Kajiado, back into the Mara," he said.

Those migration routes have largely disappeared due to human encroachment on animal habitats.

Mwitiki has trained younger artists, including two men from Malawi, who returned home to start similar recycling programmes.

"We must teach the younger people to understand the importance of recycling because the resources that we have are in danger of being polluted in many ways," he said.