Shitanda and his crew of collaborators are a force of chaotic good. There is no concept too outlandish, no outfit too absurd and no task too daunting for this visual artist and his friends to execute on set. At one stage during this shoot for NATAAL, cast member Holyziner repeatedly throws himself into a back crawl in the icy, electric blue pool of a residential complex on the outskirts of Nairobi. His face is wrapped in a crown of brass leaves as he floats in the water, black fabric spreading out all around him, as Shitanda captures the moment. Daring and wild and just another day of co-creation for these Kenyan comrades.

Next, the shoot production turns an apartment in Karen into a working set. A projector beams religious iconography against a wall, jewellery sparkles inside shopping bags, cold brew stocks the fridge. It’s all red and blue war paint, cool-as-you-please cigarette breaks and amapiano floating in the air. Cherry Black, Alexis Nereah, Tony Ngige, Rosemary Wangari, Holyziner and Vinette Khakai know how to play well together. Because as young creatives of growing repute – designers, storytellers, entrepreneurs and vibe curators – they are all tapped into the same frequency.

When not striking sickening poses, they can be found building whimsical sets, designing bespoke community spaces, photographing and dressing international stars such as Sauti Sol. They are fearless and brimming with panache. And they represent the vanguard of Nu Nairobi – a cultural zeitgeist that espouses radical imagination. As the music publication, Aipate describes it: “Nu Nairobi is a creative philosophy that is centered around artist freedom, cross-genre collaborations and an attitude that fails to, necessarily, conform with mainstream/media norms and expectations.”

It was first personified through new music in the late 2010s by recording artists, collectives and DJs such as Yellow Light Machine, XPRSO and Basthma. They were third generation Kenyan kids who grew up with the internet and understood it as a space they too could occupy. Having access to a smorgasbord of palette-expanding references, tools and perspectives naturally invites plurality, anomalous thinking; creative maximalism. It helped that they met a society more amenable to their ideas, one that affirmed these outliers. They were thriving in a space that pioneering afroelectropop collective, Just A Band, had the courage to forge. Now these alternative kids build community at clubs like The Alchemist, The Mist and Shelter. This non-conformist sensibility shows up in their fashion, literature, visual art and more recently, political expression.

To paraphrase the words of African-American playwright, Ntozake Shange, these creatives are all about being “a primary, not a secondary source”. And Shitanda, with his fluid, untethered practice spanning photography, film, textiles and painting heeds this call: “My process thrives on risk – layering contrasts and seeing what emerges from the tension,” he says. With features in Vogue Germany and WePresent, Shitanda operates with a sharp, punk logic that underscores his experimental, bright and deep charcoal images.

The 28-year-old has developed a particular liking for human-animal portraiture over the course of his five-year career. In 2023, he created ‘Lullabies at dawn’, a mixed media series that produced ‘butterfly people’. This latest exploration brings creature energy in dialogue with human form and fashion. Wolves prowl across shoulders. Horns spring from heads. Ravens swoop all around. “For me, animals carry a raw honesty that humans often mask. Their movements, instincts and presence hold a primal energy that speaks to survival, elegance, and spirit,” he says.

This harkens back to ancient times where there were less barriers between being and beast. Where bodies were adorned in hides, feathers and bones that offered aesthetic enhancement and utilitarian function. Communities embraced animals as sacred totems with magical properties. People skinned and dried them; wore body and skin across their torsos or incorporated parts as shields and armour. They made elaborate headdresses, aprons and skirts in shapes that paid homage to the root source. Entire religions were based on creatures. Masks and sculptures carved to honour their fierceness.

That same stubborn refusal to delineate between creature and man shows up beautifully in Shitanda’s new photographs. This contemporary take is greatly aided by outfits and gems from local luxury designers Sevaria, Studio Namnyak, Muyishime, Niko Ngamani, Lilabare and Tony Ngige. They too speak loudly to a refusal to be just one thing but rather embracing expansiveness and working as a collective with the strength of a galloping herd. And they employ conscious, community-led production practices to build innovative creations. On set, androgynous pieces by Muyishime and Tony Ngige’s provide endless options for the models. Sevaria, Namnyak and Lilabare’s outfits brought texture and swing as Niko Ngamani’s brass offerings became a crowning glory.

The process of bringing this series to life was exacting. The shoot days were numerous and long and occasionally in far-flung locations. Yet Shitanda wouldn’t change a thing. “What made the project even more fulfilling was working alongside my creative friends. Their energy, perspectives and willingness to play pushed me further than I would’ve gone alone. It felt less like a production and more like a shared ritual of ideas,” says Shitanda. This communal aspect greatly appealed to Cherry as well. “There’s an element of understanding each other and it allows for ideas to flow and avoid tunnel vision,” he says.

To work this way demands trust and agility. In an era where AI software is getting smarter at regurgitating stolen knowledge, originality can only spring from the minds of the brave and unencumbered. As Rosemary explains, it will come from those “executing with an open mind”. This is a sentiment echoed by Tony: “We’re making art for art’s sake.”

It is exciting to watch these young Kenyan artists embrace a counterculture stance that makes them both subject and agent of the African narrative. And they are taking this message to international stages with this project bound for The African Creative Industries Symposium in London. Closing out the British Council and The Africa Centre’s six-month UK-Kenya Season of Culture, this will be a gathering of top policymakers, artists, investors, cultural practitioners and academics from Africa, the UK, and beyond. A space designed to foster dialogue and international collaboration is a fitting platform to debut these bold images.

So, as the symposium participants marvel at Shitanda’s latest series, it inspires its creators to think about tomorrow, existing for it without losing the understanding that everything exists in a continuum. “We have a goal to grow beyond the Nairobi border – not being a prop but sharing a narrative that showcases what the city has to offer,” says Alexis.

When asked what he’d like audiences to experience when they see these images on the pages of NATAAL and at the symposium, Shitanda says: “I’d like them to feel a sense of awakening — like they’ve stepped into a dream that blurs the lines between human and animal, body and spirit, fashion and instinct. Ideally, they leave questioning where one ends and the other begins.”

Happy awakening.