Mali ya Mali reproduces Kenya’s best contemporary art on bags

Mutheu Mbondo (right), founder of Mali ya Mali, with a customer at the Nairobi Fashion Market. Mwikali Lati  

By Mwikali Lati

In Summary

• Although based in Kuona Trust Centre, Mali Ya Mali is an independent company.

A cushion with the prints of renowned artist Dennis Miuraguri sits on a table next to a wall where cards with similar prints are neatly hang on rope. On the ground are two metal boxes full of canvas totes and messenger bags with prints by two other celebrated artists Denis Soi and Michael Soi.

 

So rich is the diversity in the collection of contemporary art that anyone visiting the gallery run by Mali ya Mali at an office block off on Nairobi’s Denis Pritt road will not miss something impressing.

“All our products feature the work of great contemporary Kenyan artists reproduced at high quality. We also believe that by creating beautiful, cool products, we’ll also reach out to a wider market who would then eventually also be the buyers of the actual art pieces,” says Mutheu Mbondo, the founder of Mali Ya Mali.

The latest products are notebooks with Patrick Mukabi, Yassir Ali, Charles Ngatia and Sylvia Gichia artworks on the covers.

Started last November, the first sale was a month later during a Kuona Trust Open day with greeting cards from with artworks from Michael Soi and Evanson Kangethe.

“In Kenya, to own a piece of contemporary Kenyan art, one has to have quite a bit of money. At least that’s mostly the case. Most well established artists are also quite expensive (often as they should be). That eliminates the possibility for others who love the art, but do not have as much buying power to own art,” says Ms Mbondo.

Although based in Kuona Trust Centre, Mali Ya Mali is an independent company. Renting a space there gives them easy access to the artists they are looking to work with.

“What Mali ya Mali is trying to achieve is to produce high quality artwork on different products at affordable prices,” she says. “At the end of the day, a Mali ya Mali product is like owning a little piece of Kenya’s best contemporary art.”

Ms Mbondo, who worked at Kuona for four years from 2004, says the idea of a ‘Mali ya Mali’ has been open secret in the inner circles of the local art scene. Some artists and Ramona and Watatu Galleries were already producing cards for sale but the supply was never consistent.

“Before starting Mali ya Mali, I talked to the players in the art scene just to run the idea by them. All of them said it was a good idea. However, if it is such a good idea, why hadn’t someone done it? One of them said that it took too much time and energy. Indeed it does. I had to stop everything else to focus on building Mali ya Mali,” she says.

Her goal is to create and sell beautiful, functional, creative products that show contemporary Kenyan art. Therefore, getting the right people or producers is paramount to their success and it has proven difficult; but not impossible. It took six months to get the right printer and at the right price to do the notebooks.

“We are working with contemporary Kenyan artists with high quality work and an interest in going this route of merchandising with us. However, we are looking at the possibility of doing some products with upcoming artists who are not as well established but that’s in the future,” she says.

Currently, working with eight artists and looking to signing more, Ms Mbondo says selling the idea to the artist has become easier.

“Some artists immediately get the idea, but others they are a bit scared and ask; ‘What does this mean? What happens when you reproduce my work? What happens to the value of my real work?’ So, they are a lot of conversations still on going on that end. However, some artists are beginning to see the products thus coming to us to use their images,” she says.
The key advantage that comes to an artist, being part of Mali ya Mali, is the ‘passive income’ that comes with selling of products.

It gives the artist the freedom to continue creating. The percentages vary and are negotiated based on the product and also the type of production and the artists input if required.
Another is growing the profile of the artist and the whole visual art scene as well.