Global Players Exhibition

Kenya Mon 20-11-2006

Global Players Exhibition
By Africancolours.com

The exhibition "Global Players" will feature some 50 toys that ARD-TV correspondent Birgit Virnich collected during her numerous trips across Africa covering stories for German television. Fotos and short stories will be accompanying the installation of the toys opening on Monday 20th 2006 at 18.00 at Goethe Institute, Nairobi.

In a workshop two kids from Mathare will demonstrate how they build their matatus and a short film shot in several African countries will take the viewers into the world of these creative children. Birgit Virnich has been producing films for ARD German TV since April 2002.

They are made out of waste: caravans of tightly knotted small lorries and minibusses of wire, plastic or wood. Colourful helicopters made out of tossed flip-flops, planes and bicycles made out of tin. Small pieces of art, crafted by young artists all across Africa with a great love for detail.

These recycled toys convey the dreams of children. Lorries, whose drivers are greatly respected by the children. With their small helicopters they want to escape the war and with their planes they want to explore the wonderful world they live in. Africa's children construct what they admire most. Masterful artefacts made from western waste. Poetry. Stories manufactured from junk.

These small artefacts of infantile creativity catch the eye of German TV journalist Birgit Virnich like gems on the roadside in the most remote African landscapes. It is these gems of ingenuity that she searches for while driving through Africa filming.

Even in the face of great poverty these toys are created more lovingly than their industrially manufactured counterparts in the Western world.

Whether it`s in the slums of the big cities like Nairobi, Lagos, Kinshasa or in the small villages in Northern Nigeria, rural Rwanda, occupied Monrovia or at the road blocks of the young child generals in the Eastern Congo these children persist. They mould their toys with great devotion.

Posted By: African Colours

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