We recently connected with L Akinyi and have shared our conversation below.
L, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
There are a few projects that are dear to my heart, but only one that I feel has opened up doors that I didn’t even know existed. In 2020, during the peak of the pandemic and protests against police brutality, social injustice, health inequity and other unresolved issues in the country, I was coping through art and creating a mixed-media collage piece that would evolve into a bigger multi-disciplinary project called MASKS + MIRRORS. In this original piece, now titled ” WE SAW EVERYTHING BUT EACH OTHER”, there are two flower-crowned heads, connected at the neck, floating through a watercolor blotch-field of a shared consciousness. I was trying to process everything that was happening around me while navigating a short-lived, long-distance relationship I was in with another artist at the time. Like most people, there was much about myself that started to shift significantly during that year. Most profound was the slow realization that if I paid attention, I was always catching reflections of myself through my relationships with others and the world. I didn’t know how to articulate what I was experiencing then and I found myself diving deep into attachment theory, identity, otherness and masking.
The following year, post-breakup and back to semi-“normal” living, I was taking regular mental-health walks and collecting fallen palm fronds from the trees in my neighborhood in Riverside to use as art supply. Inspired by other artists creating mask-themed work, I placed a sheath over my face, adorned it with beads and shells and started a small series of masks that helped me connect to my love for the rich, expansive culture of traditional and contemporary African masquerade, which was also receiving a lot of attention on social media as many people pf African descent have been making their Sankofa journey in various ways. I was born and raised in Kenya and have been fascinated by masks since childhood. Between 2021 and 2022, I continued to make masks and explore the theme of Masks + Mirrors using photography, filtered video loops and an experimental poetry/film project that started during my residency at Estudio Aire (Arts Connection Network) at the Garcia Center for the Arts in San Bernardino. This project, and the community that I found through it, have allowed me to open up my ideas, try different ways of sharing art, receive some feedback and come out of my shell. Before this, I was creating almost entirely in isolation, showing my work infrequently and deeply afraid of stepping into the arena as an artist in the IE. I’m still working through many insecurities, and I feel my confidence growing. I am grateful for the spaces I have been able to take my first, wobbly steps in while workshopping Masks + Mirrors. From Crestline to Joshua Tree and back to San Bernardino, Masks + Mirrors has been a way for me to learn what is possible for artists when we take risks, even small ones, to express ourselves and connect our shared experiences.
This year, I have been learning what goes into organizing a film festival and am bewildered, yet grateful to have my experimental film screen at the Inland Film Festival. I hope to continue making boundary-crossing work in collaboration with willing poets, musicians and artists and remain a life-long learner in this field of dreams.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a Kenyan child of the Nile, born and raised in Nairobi, living in SoCal since my early twenties. Prior to moving to the US, I was studying architecture and ventured briefly into music and musical theater, with visual arts being more of a personal pastime. After my siblings and I settled in Antelope Valley, I attended community college and applied to the undergraduate arts program at UCLA with a photography portfolio. Other than music, it was the only thing I knew I was easily good at and I somehow convinced myself and the portfolio review board that I could be a commercial photographer. After graduation I started working in early education to pay my bills, pursuing art opportunities on the side while haphazardly sharing my work with a small online community of other Kenyan artists living in Nairobi, the US and the UK. In a New Genres class at UCLA, I had been exposed to a multi-disciplinary approach of tackling a single subject and continue that type of inquiry to this day, often working through more than one medium at a time. I can trace the ways that I enjoy working now to that class, an African art history class, my independent research and the small online community of artists that are still working in their respective fields in different parts of the world.
Being an immigrant anywhere, and especially in the US, can be difficult. I find myself still feeling like I live in multiple worlds, some of them so hostile or disorienting that I shapeshift through identities which sometimes makes it hard for me to discern what is fantasy and what is real. I’ve decided that I thrive when I am dancing on the very thin line between the two and find that art is a way for me to bridge all of my worlds and if for no one else, create something that feels truthful to me. Art teaches me to listen most deeply to myself, detach myself from the perceptions of others and value the ways that I connect to (my) spirit, while bringing me so many opportunities to collaborate with other artists and creative folks in the communities I occupy.
I think it’s important for people to have some form of creative, expressive practice that allows them to explore themselves as multi-dimensional human beings with a story worthy of their own attention and inquiry. And then… find ways to connect that story to the bigger story of humanity or the cosmos or something that is bigger than themselves.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
From my observations, the people and environments that I have experienced as supportive for artists are those spaces that are not only concerned with the product of and potential profit from creative effort but value the wellness and quality of the living of the individuals doing creative work. I am more likely to trust individuals and organizations that display an awareness and acknowledgment of the inequity of current oppressive structures paired with intentional, community-informed action to begin to repair years of collective harm so that we can co-create a thriving creative economy that feels circular in the sense that everyone has access to information, resources and the tools to build a sustainable life for present generations of artists and those to come.
What this means for me is that there needs to be a shift from the current ways that we commodify ourselves and each other. Creative labor needs to be approached, not as an extension of consumerism- a tool for distracting the masses, superficial gratification, entertainment or escapism, but as deeply interconnected, collaborative effort with each other and the natural world around us, .
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Something I am working through right now is unlearning money as the root of all evil. I saw a video recently from @thespiritualcowboygirl that challenged me to reconsider my fear of wealth and really invite the reality that there is enough to go around! I am observing my own scarcity mindset without judgment and imagining what would be possible if I could meet my needs solely through creative work. I wouldn’t have to be envious or in competition with other creatives, I wouldn’t have to put myself in places or work in ways that feel out of alignment with who I know myself to be and… I wouldn’t repeatedly self-sabotage when I do have an idea or project that is fund-worthy because artist can, do and deserve to earn money from their work when there is an opportunity to do so. I don’t know why this is still so counterintuitive for me, the acceptance of my creative efforts as work, and that is something I am working towards as I adjust my attitudes, goals and habits. I can say that it helps to have other local artists already breaking out of their limiting beliefs and carving paths for the rest of us who desire the same to follow in our own way.
Contact Info:
- Website: coming soon!
- Instagram: _l.akinyi
- Youtube: _l.akinyi
- Other: are.na: Ⓛ akinyi
Image Credits
Artist photo- Yulissa Mendoza Mask workshop GCA- Yulissa Mendoza M+M screening Joshua tree- Susan Rukeyser All Other photos- L Akinyi.