{ "142791-21891560": { "datetime_modified":"20251216T100358", "datetime_start":"20260205T090000", "datetime_end":"20260205T170000", "has_end_time":1, "date_start":"2026-02-05", "date_end":"2026-02-05", "time_start":"09:00:00", "time_end":"17:00:00", "time_zone":"America\/Detroit", "event_title":"Tukilile Vaa", "occurrence_title":"", "combined_title":"Tukilile Vaa: An exhibition by Kaloki Nyamai", "event_subtitle":"An exhibition by Kaloki Nyamai", "event_type":"Exhibition", "event_type_id":"7", "description":"Kaloki Nyamai is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nairobi. His practice explores Kenya's histories and collective memory, blending Kamba traditions with contemporary narratives. Using acrylic paint, rope, photo transfers, and stitched yarn, his free-hanging immersive works blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation. For his U-M project, Nyamai will present one large unstretched piece and two framed paintings at the Institute for the Humanities, as well as a second free-hanging work at the U-M Museum of Art.\r\n\r\nThe physicality of his complex constructions inspire wonder in the viewer. The works are vast in scale, embedded with stories, where past and future merge both poetically and conceptually. In each composition, the artist proposes a powerful alternative to the flatness of singular narratives of Kenyan history and identity presented as the definitive postcolonial account. He likens the formal act of stitching to symbolically unifying a wounded or fractured community.\r\n\r\nNyamai founded the Kamene Cultural & Research Center in Nairobi, a creative and collaborative hub dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and innovation of African cultural practices.\r\n\r\nAbout the artist:\r\nKaloki Nyamai (*1985 in Kitui, Kenya) is a multidisciplinary artist working with installation, painting, and sculpture based in Nairobi. From an early age, his mother introduced him to painting and taught him to draw, fostering an ever-lasting interest in art throughout his life. He often finds inspiration in his grandmother\u2019s stories of the Kamba people, a Bantu ethnic group of eastern Kenya. Using materials like acrylic paint, sisal rope, photo transfers, and stitched yarn, Nyamai\u2019s free-hanging pieces evoke the healing of historical wounds and a collective yearning for renewal. His works blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation, creating cohesive, immersive experiences where past, present, and future converge poetically.\r\n\r\nNyamai studied Interior Design at the Buruburu Institute Of Fine Arts (BIFA) and then pursued painting after working in other creative fields. His large-scale paintings and mixed-media installations intricately explore historical narratives, examining their resonance in the present. Nyamai has shown his work across the globe in solo exhibitions at the Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2024); James Cohan Gallery, New York (2024); Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin (2023 and 2022); SEPTIEME Gallery, Paris (2019), and other venues. In 2023, he featured part of his series Dining in Chaos in the \u201cUnlimited\u201d section at Art Basel in Basel. He has participated in group exhibitions and biennials, most recently at the Sharjah Biennial 16, Sharjah (2025); The V\u00f6lklinger H\u00fctte, V\u00f6lklingen (2024); the Kenyan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Venice (2022); and the Dakar Biennale (2022). His works are part of numerous private and institutional collections around the world, such as the Dallas Art Museum, the Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art, and the Arthur Primas Museum.", "occurrence_notes":null, "guid":"142791-21891560@events.umich.edu", "permalink":"http:\/\/events.umich.edu\/event\/142791", "building_id":"1005179", "building_name":"202 S. Thayer", "campus_maps_id":"524", "room":"Institute for the Humanities Gallery", "location_name":"202 S. Thayer", "has_livestream":0, "cost":"", "tags":["Art","Visual Arts","Humanities","Exhibition"], "website":"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/umichhumanities\/", "sponsors":[ { "group_name":"Institute for the Humanities", "group_id":"1130", "website":"http:\/\/www.lsa.umich.edu\/humanities" } ], "image_url":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "styled_images":{ "event_thumb":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_thumb\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_large":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_large_2x":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large_2x\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_large_lightbox":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large_lightbox\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "group_thumb":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_thumb\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "group_thumb_square":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_thumb_square\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "group_large":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_large\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "group_large_lightbox":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_large_lightbox\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_large_crop":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large_crop\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_list":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_list\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_list_2x":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_list_2x\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_grid":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_grid\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_grid_2x":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_grid_2x\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_feature_large":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_feature_large\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg", "event_feature_thumb":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_feature_thumb\/media\/attachments\/2025\/12\/event_142791_original-1.jpg" }, "occurrence_count":33, "first_occurrence":21891538 } , "143401-21893076": { "datetime_modified":"20260127T110004", "datetime_start":"20260205T093000", "datetime_end":"20260205T170000", "has_end_time":1, "date_start":"2026-02-05", "date_end":"2026-02-05", "time_start":"09:30:00", "time_end":"17:00:00", "time_zone":"America\/Detroit", "event_title":"CAS Workshop. Photographic Genres, in and Beyond Archives", "occurrence_title":"", "combined_title":"CAS Workshop. Photographic Genres, in and Beyond Archives: Organizer: Hazal \u00d6zdemir (Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow in Armenian History, U-M)", "event_subtitle":"Organizer: Hazal \u00d6zdemir (Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow in Armenian History, U-M)", "event_type":"Conference \/ Symposium", "event_type_id":"5", "description":"This workshop explores the multiple deployments of photography in the early twentieth-century global Middle East. The goal is to understand how visual practices intersect with power, communication, and documentation. Collectively, participants ask how photography became a tool for denaturalization and the persecution of undesirable and marginalized subjects in imperial settings, such as minorities, revolutionaries, and convicts in the Ottoman and Qajar empires. How did state This workshop explores the multiple deployments of photography in the early twentieth-century global Middle East. We will discuss how visual practices intersect with power, communication, and documentation. Collectively, participants ask how photography became a tool for denaturalization and the persecution of undesirable and marginalized subjects, whether minorities, revolutionaries, and convicts in the Ottoman and Qajar empires. How did state surveillance of mobility produce knowledge about imperial subjects?\n\nParticipants will examine a diverse range of photographic genres, from family records to convict photographs, and studio portraits to complicate photography\u2019s role in regulating class and gender dynamics as well as criminality across the region.\n\nQuestions of ownership and the ethical status of imperial archives that preserve photographs of marginalized or indigenous communities are critical to our discussions of power. How can we responsibly reconstruct the pasts of marginalized, displaced, and persecuted individuals by the Ottoman or Qajar state using photographs taken by the very same state? In what ways did photographs serve as instruments of state bureaucracy and as a form of resistance to it? In other words, how do blurred boundaries between photographic genres offer subjects opportunities to assert their identity and recreate personal or collective memories?\n\nWorkshop Program\n\n9:30 - 9:45 am: Morning Refreshments\n\n9:45-10 am: Welcome & Opening Remarks\nKathryn Babayan, Director of the Center for Armenian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor\nHazal \u00d6zdemir, Manoogian Postdoctoral Fellow of Armenian History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor\n\n10:00 \u2013 11:15 am: Keynote Lecture\n\u201cFrom Euphoria to Rigor: Challenges in the History of Photography in the Ottoman Empire\u201d\nEdhem Eldem, Columbia University\n\n11:15 - 11:30 am: Coffee Break\n\n11:30 am - 1:00 pm: Panel 1: Chasing Unusual Photographic Ventures\n\u201cIn Living Color: Hand-painted Photographs, Ottoman Costumes, and Gendered Labor\u201d\n- Erin Hyde Nolan, Harvard University\n\n\u201cMigration Photography as an In-between Genre and Disobedient Photographers\u201d\n- Hazal \u00d6zdemir, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor\n\nRespondent: Joseph Ho, University of Michigan\n\n1:00 - 2:00 pm: Lunch\n\n2:00 \u2013 3:30 pm: Panel 2: Documenting Atrocity and Survival\nThe \u2018Soulless Machine\u2019 and Its Image Output: Photographs of Terror and the End of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution\n- Mira Xenia Schwerda, Duke University\n\n\u201cUnidentified as a Genre: The Archival Afterlives of Photographs at the Biblioth\u00e8que Nubar\u201d\n- \u0130dil \u00c7etin, University of Oslo\n\nRespondent: Kathryn Babayan, University of Michigan\n\n3:30 \u2013 4:00 pm: Coffee Break\n\n4:00 \u2013 5:00 pm: Roundtable Discussion\n- Arto Vaun, Project Save Photograph Archive\n\nCosponsor:\nNational Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)\n \nOnline Access:\n Webinar ID: 932 5370 8805\n https:\/\/umich.zoom.us\/j\/93253708805\n\n*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange. Email: -- armenianstudies@umich.edu", "occurrence_notes":null, "guid":"143401-21893076@events.umich.edu", "permalink":"http:\/\/events.umich.edu\/event\/143401", "building_id":"1000165", "building_name":"Weiser Hall", "campus_maps_id":"47", "room":"1010", "location_name":"Weiser Hall", "has_livestream":0, "cost":"", "tags":["Symposium","Lecture","History","Discussion","armenians","Armenian Studies","Area Studies"], "website":"https:\/\/umich.zoom.us\/j\/93253708805", "sponsors":[ { "group_name":"Center for Armenian Studies", "group_id":"3124", "website":"http:\/\/www.ii.umich.edu\/armenian" }, { "group_name":"International Institute", "group_id":"1968", "website":"http:\/\/www.ii.umich.edu" } ], "image_url":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "styled_images":{ "event_thumb":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_thumb\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_large":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_large_2x":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large_2x\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_large_lightbox":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large_lightbox\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "group_thumb":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_thumb\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "group_thumb_square":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_thumb_square\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "group_large":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_large\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "group_large_lightbox":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/group_large_lightbox\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_large_crop":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_large_crop\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_list":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_list\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_list_2x":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_list_2x\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_grid":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_grid\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_grid_2x":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_grid_2x\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_feature_large":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_feature_large\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png", "event_feature_thumb":"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/media\/cache\/event_feature_thumb\/media\/attachments\/2026\/01\/event_143401_original-2.png" }, "occurrence_count":1, "first_occurrence":21893076 } }