James Muriuki is a Nairobi-based artist specializing in photography and lens-based media. He is interested in transitioning societies in the global south, the different knowledge systems occurring within the visual arts environments of those societies, and how these systems are enmeshed within the social fabric. James uses materials and objects of personal or communal reference, as visual elements and metaphorical symbols as illustrations of human capacity. He tugs at the threads of the interdependency of circumstance in our turbulent social frameworks: the modern and the traditional; the spontaneous and the customary; the desirable and the aspirational. He experiments with and investigates the potential of images as media and the processes of making art: photography and motion; video and sound; ultimately, as reservoirs of knowledge and channels of communication. James' work has been exhibited in and is collected globally and has been included in many publications. He has collaborated with other artists, attended residencies and workshops in different countries and is a grants recipient. He has worked as a designer and as the gallery manager and curator of a renowned Nairobi Art Institution before venturing off into private practice in 2011. He has had many photographic commissions in different capacities from the training of photographers to the development and curation of photography exhibitions including: Frontiers of the Present: Exploring New Ideas in Photography, Nairobi; Passing It On: Inventorying Living Heritage in Africa, Windhoek; and co-curating In Memorium and Constructions, under the collective 3Collect of which he was a founding member. He was central in the publication of the art magazine Msanii, the artists’ book Layers and contributed to the UNESCO publication Documenting Living Heritage. He is an alumnus of The Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Centre of Curatorial Leadership, Fellowship and Training. Image: Scott Rudd