Carnival 2026 Working group meeting
20 December 2025
Andris on Saint Vincent
The David Graeber Institute is continuing the Survival Kit Collection project, part of the Museum of Care, in Saint Vincent. We returned to Saint Vincent Prison, one of DGI’s first partners in building a network of circular economy zones connected to the collection.
The project began with a 3D printer and a machine that shreds plastic bottles and converts them into filament for 3D printing. We also connected the prison with an organization working with visually impaired people to establish a small circular economy unit. DGI introduced spirulina dishes, and spirulina farming in the prison will begin soon.
The project has been accompanied by three online lectures and an online assembly, involving Brian Eno, Cory Doctorow, Steve Keen, Ilona Otto, and Michael Hudson.
DGI also put together an art program with posters,3D-printable blocks and stamps that can be used to print on T-shirts.
Nika
We should use our experience in SV for the Carnival in Nairobi, e.g. we can print masks for the carnival.
Another project is to create a cover for spirulina chips.
Jamie on the main even in Kenya
We have access to the largest 3D printers in Kenya. We started as Kibera Arts Parade.
October 31 (the date of the carnival 2026) coincides with our annual Peace and Justice show. October 24 is the opening of Nairobi Arts Biennale, Carnival will be the celebration of that. We expect at least 2 000 people visiting Kibera during that time.
Nika
Our largest carnival in London was 500 people.
Katia on London event
We can have collaboration between the two carnivals. Exchange ideas, digital art, physical objects, music. The London carnival will be in September, artists from London can take part in other art events that will be happening in Nairobi at that time (contribute to one of the exhibitions).
We need to connect the London event to the local community. Maybe we could celebrate the unique location – Alexandra road estate was designed as an example of street based living and an alternative to high rises. We already have links to residents’ association (Elizabeth who personally knew the architect Neave Brown).
We’ve made a whatsapp group to discuss ideas for the London event, please join:
Also please spread the word and invite artists, performers, educators, etc who might be interested in contributing to the event in London.
Nika
Be careful with budget and offering money to people to participate – last year we ran an open call for workshop facilitators and artists, and had applicants asking for big budgets. Money is great, just
Leopoldo
Archeologist, memory scholar, working with Nika on the Social currency project. Social currency was one of David’s ideas, connected to the theme of Poetic technologies.
It’s an attempt to go beyond the prevalent idea of beads as primitive currency. David flipped this idea upside down. Rather than understanding it as a protocurrency, it’s understood as a type of social currency. The value is not in the beads but in the social connections that come with them. Promised or past actions create value. Money doesn’t do that, money is very aseptic.
Petter
I’m an artist with roots in the Sami community of the Arctic. The concept of music in Sami culture (music can not be commodified). We can design a flute to be 3D printed in Kenya and and decorated with beads.
Nika
We can include SV into the exchange, there’s a carnival in SV that’s going to be before the one in London. Can Petter maybe set up a workshop to teach people to make those 3D printed instruments, so that we can have a whole collection. And the open call for other artists to join him?
Jamie
We would love this idea for the Kibera event/exhibition.
Leopoldo
Artist that digitised artifacts from the British museum, created reconstructed sculptures based on those scans and infused with sensors to create a soundscape. Reclaiming the stolen artifacts of the colonial era. Accessible museum. https://www.bgc.bard.edu/events/1586/03-dec-2025-replica-relic
Will
We are working on a system of Online curations, vouchers or commitments between the artists. The idea is to curate artists on digital platforms, the artists also have credits that they can trade with each other, like an online marketplace.
Will’s book on grassroots economics:
14 November 2025
Context
Mutual aid practices in Kenya: people make commitments for certain things they could do for each other for free, then swap with others (farming labour, tailoring, cleaning, looking after children, etc). In some cases these meetings happen on a weekly basis, people exchange mutual aid gift cards.These systems operate all over Kenya: in cities, refugee camps, rural communities etc. They are what David Graeber called ‘everyday communism’. These networks can start connecting with each other. Will has been doing this across Kenya for several years.
Nairobi is very international, the UN is moving there, Kibera makes up 6% of the territory of Nairobi and is a home for 1 mln ppl. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa.
Kibera Arts parade is held annually in the Kibera Arts district and will become a carnival in October 2026. Kibera Arts District offers enormous production space with 37 artist studios and workshops that are equipped to support art practice in a variety of disciplines (incl. textiles, sculpture, metalwork, glassblowing). We have 60 sewing machines in Kibera. We produce for fashion designers. Production costs in Kibera are much lower. Some works can be sent digitally. Bridge from Kibera to the rest of the world. There’s already a lot of exchange going on between the UK and Kenya.
There’s a gallery space and accommodation for resident artists. Recently we had 5 resident artists working with textiles with support from 15 local artists. Many young artists didn’t know how to sew. Nobody was paid. No money exchange, no payment for models or performers. Even the soundsystem was bartered. It was a great experience, lots of collaborations.
Residencies are available for the entire east african arts community. Also for international artists. It’s not an NGO, it’s a movement. People can come on a very low budget. Lots of backpackers. We’ve worked on it for 15 years.
There’s also a market where artists and makers can sell their artworks. Lots of Kenyan buyers, plus international travellers. Young art collectors. Often they use a kind of barter system. Artists trade artworks with each other. Sales for money also happen, but they are not enough to support Kibera art district, so it has to rely on alternative systems of exchange. Artists in Kibera often don’t have funds to complete their work. Kibera lends them money in exchange for some of their artworks.
David Graeber Institute has an experience of art exchange with apt art exhibitions (e.g. ‘Make Carnival not War’). In St Vincent, people take loans before the carnival and pay them back after the carnival. There’s a prize giving too.
Example of similar initiatives in Detroit: in the early 2000 there was a group of artists who formed The Detroit Unreal estate agency to document all forms of organic alternative economies that emerged during the decline of Detroit. Usually there’s very little transfer of knowledge between these experiences and other communities, so they decided to document it.
There is a book by Andrew Hursher ‘The Detroit Unreal estate guide’ describing Detroit’s experience. Lots of ideas there. Marcus Lyon also created a human atlas of Detroit, not linked but interesting when you consider place and time: https://www.marcuslyon.com/artworks/idetroit/
Ideas and questions to think about
- We want to make the Kenyan system of exchange international. How can we bring together our international group of artists and Kibera’s creative production space?
- We could produce things in Kibera during this coming year and exhibit them during the carnival in October.
- We have a lot of ideas about the things that can be produced in Kibera (e.g., DGI has a collection of flags that can be printed in Kibera, Nika wants to make 100 dresses for the Carnival), but how can it be funded? Will it be possible to rent some of Kibera’s working spaces to produce things?
- We could put an open call for people who want to produce something for the carnival, and try to combine it with Kibera’s production facilities. The group in Kenya will decide if they can produce.
- Maybe we could make two wish lists: 1 – our ideas / 2 – facilities and costs of production in Kibera.
- Maybe we could put together a fund for creatives in Kibera (Carnival can be a starting point). A kind of credit union based around Carnival. Seed funding to start with. What are the resources from the international side?
- We could also create a digital marketplace that can have money as well as products and services. The money can be used to give loans to artists with artworks as collateral.
- Can we have a prize giving in Kibera? Maybe we could put aside a fund for the prize.
- We need to make a budget for the Carnival
- Maybe we could publish a book on Kibera Art District