Africa: reborn every day
An exhibition by Zachariah Mbutha
The Art Pavilion welcomes a new project exploring the themes of cooperation and social solidarity: Africa: Reborn Every Day, an exhibition by Zachariah Mbutha, organised by Koinonia – APS with the support of Fondazione Luigi Rovati.
Zachariah Mbutha (Kenya, 1949) is a leading figure in contemporary Kenyan painting. Born in the village of Kamburu, in Kiambu County, he initially trained and worked as a teacher, eventually becoming the headmaster of a primary school. Passionate about art from a young age, he entered a Pan-African art competition for the first time in 1968 and won an award. In 1979, he left teaching permanently to devote himself to painting.
In the mid-1980s, he became part of Nairobi’s art scene through Gallery Watatu. In 1992, he won the French Cultural Centre Art Panorama, and two years later he presented solo exhibitions at the French Cultural Centre in Nairobi and the Fonderie Gallery in Paris. He has also exhibited in Portugal, Japan and Germany, consolidating his presence on the international art scene.
His works are now held in public and private collections, including the Gunter Péus Collection – African Modernism, an important European collection devoted to African modern art, and continue to appear on the international art market.
Koinonia – APS is a non-profit association founded in 1993 to promote social solidarity and development cooperation initiatives in Africa and Latin America. It became an ONLUS organisation in 2006 and an APS—Social Promotion Association—in 2021, and is now registered with Italy’s Single National Register of the Third Sector.
The association places the most vulnerable and marginalised people at the heart of its work: men, women and children for whom even a small opportunity can offer a way out of poverty and the chance to look towards the future with renewed prospects.
Koinonia currently supports several projects in Kenya run by the Koinonia Community, a local non-governmental organisation. Both organisations were founded by Comboni missionary Father Renato Kizito Sesana.
These initiatives focus particularly on the rehabilitation of children and young people living on the streets, who are welcomed into centres such as Kivuli Centre, Tone la Maji, Anita’s Home and Mdugu N’dogo. Embedded within Nairobi’s peripheral neighbourhoods, these facilities provide rehabilitation and social reintegration programmes, fostering self-esteem, awareness of individual rights and respect for gender equality.
In Nairobi, the association also supports the Salama project, which protects young mothers and women experiencing hardship by creating employment opportunities and providing support to families.