Margaret Ngigi Kenya, b. 1996

Biography

“I’ve been an artist at heart all my life.”

Margaret Njeri Ngigi was born in 1996 in Kenya and currently lives and works in Nairobi.

She’s a passionate emerging visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, and graduate in Film Production and Directing at United States International University of Africa.

While Margaret has been an artist in many forms since she was young, she has been practising photography for nine years now, for which she has been shortlisted for award at Photo London emerging photographer of the year 2020.

Women have been and continue to be the centre of most of her projects and by taking those images she makes an image of herself and tries to bring these issues affecting women to the limelight. This is very important for her as women all around her continue to be oppressed by the society she lives in, and yet these issues are not talked about. Another topic she holds dear is mental illness, which she addresses in her work.

While she enjoys creating photographs and films, what drives her is the need to start conversations on issues that affect women and society at large. She is very passionate about feminism and the need to have safe spaces where women are able to hold conversations and also relate with her work and not feel alone with whatever issues they go through.

Her environment has always been a source of inspiration for her and in 2019 she started working on a series of photographic works whose English translation from Swahili is “Good Wife” (Mke Mwema). As she says “When I look at my future self, as a wife, I wonder what kind of wife I would like to be and what options society offers me. I mainly use young models, women in their twenties like me. Through dressing and using other elements, such as body painting, I try to represent the different types of women I see in my society”.

Her work has been shown in local and international galleries.

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Works