About The Speaker
Wanjiku Mwawuganga
Participating Artists
Wanjiku Mwawuganga is a Kenyan multidisciplinary artist, mostly known for her work as atheatre director. She is currently running a tour of her multidisciplinary solo performance “ROOTS” Roots is jarring as a performance. We as Africans have a culture of keeping things underwraps. The source of said culture is debatable. This show forces Wanjiku to bare her soul and tell the audience secrets that have been kept in her family for generations. Secrets that once she shares aren’t so foreign […]
Wanjiku Mwawuganga is a Kenyan multidisciplinary artist, mostly known for her work as atheatre director. She is currently running a tour of her multidisciplinary solo performance “ROOTS”
Roots is jarring as a performance. We as Africans have a culture of keeping things
underwraps. The source of said culture is debatable. This show forces Wanjiku to bare
her soul and tell the audience secrets that have been kept in her family for generations.
Secrets that once she shares aren’t so foreign to those with a shared history.
ROOTS is an multidisciplinary show which uses physical, oral, and audiovisual storytelling to
investigate intergenerational trauma and motherhood. The relationships between mothers and
daughters are followed across five generations. Wanjiku Mwawuganga conducts interviews with the
women who raised them and examines body memory in relation to the memory captured in a
photograph.
ROOTS was created in collaboration with Leila Anderson as co-director and dramaturg, Henry
Wamai as technical director and Kimani Wandaka as the photography collaborator.
ROOTS was produced in 2021 under Maabara Exchange Program in collaboration with Zurcher
Theatre Spektakel and Spielart Festival in Munich. The work later toured coastal Kenya through the support of Goethe Institut Kenya and Pro Helvetia To-gather Joburg.