Slow Cooking with Guya & Untethered Magic – Episode 3

Welcome back to Slow Cooking. For this third episode, but actually the first one to be recorded, we visit our friends Untethered Magic’s compound in Ongara Rongai, the outskirts of Nairobi, and local artist and chef Guya.

A place of gathering and of artistic residencies, built literally from the ground up by the collective running it – Syowia Kyambi, Kibe Wangunyu and Ciaran Nash – Untethered Magic is situated right bang in the National Park, with all sorts of wild animals around. As well as a place of passage for those animals, it is also a home for so many artists, thinkers, activists from the world over.

We meet Guya, who has spent the week preparing a gorgeous feast for us, an artist and chef whose work explores cultural reconstruction and focuses on re-imagining traditional practices in African communities. Together, we buy fresh tilapia fish from Nam Lolwe Fish shop, an assortment of grains and maze and fresh vegetables from the local market, before traveling back to the compound to finish cooking it together.

At the table, we are joined by artists in residency Arlene Wandera and Munish Wadhia, as well as filmmaker Omori Mobby, to discuss art, the origins of the food and the incredibly nuanced relationships between local indigenous tribes and the very real impact of contemporary colonial looting in Kenya’s food trade. It is a riveting and wide-reaching conversation that opens up provocations on the importance of respecting one’s local produce, the social-political implications of sharing seeds, and the choreography of eating.

This is Slow Cooking with Guya and Untethered Magic.

Bom apetite. 

PODCAST:

VIDEOS:

Part 1

Part 2

🥣

Slow Cooking Part 1 & Part 2

Created by Xavier de Sousa and Kibe Wangunyu
With special participation by Guya and Untethered Magic
Narrative by Xavier de Sousa
Food creation and cooking by Guya
Filmed by Kibe Wangunyu and Omori Mobby
Edited by Kibe Wangunyu
Sound editing by Olive Mondegreen
Strategic Producing & Consultancy by The Uncultured
Guests at the table: Arlene Wandera & Munish Wadhia
Filmed on location in Ongata Rongai, Nairobi National Park and Untethered Magic 
Commissioned by Theatre in the Mill, performingborders and Migrant Actions Productions. 
Additional funding by Arts Council England

BIOGRAPHIES

Guya is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work explores cultural reconstruction and focuses on re-imagining traditional practices in African communities; through mediums such as food, hair and language she documents various practices and their evolution through space and time.  

Untethered Magic’s goal is to provide s supportive communal safe space for creatives, so they may focus on their processes. They strive to push forward research-based conceptual contemporary arts for the Global South. Untethered Magic continually seeks out creatives to open the challenges of an environment that demands experimentation, cooperation, and exchange. Untethered Magic is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kibe Wangunyu is a self-taught Kenyan commercial photographer, cinematographer, and digital artist whose work focuses on identity, psychology, and philosophy, concerning culture, identity, and Kenyan colonial and pre-colonial history. He is also a co-founder of Untethered Magic.

Olive Mondegreen is an escapee from the music industry. After releasing ten albums in ten years and touring Europe multiple times, she moved into using her music to support choreographers. Her third full length score debuts November 2024 for the show “Juice” in Heilbronn, Germany. Since the pandemic, Olive has also worked as a podcast editor and producer for multiple shows including the weekly anti-hustle careers show “What The Hell Is My Job” and the modern history “My Queer Museum”. She enjoys having no social media.

Xavier de Sousa (he/they) is an multidisciplinary performance maker and culture worker based between Portugal and the UK. 


They co-curate the digital research and live art commissioning platform performingborders, and Citemor Festival (Portugal). Previously developed and co-curated performance events Queer Migrant Takeover and CUT Festival, as well as New Queers on the Block, Marlborough Productions’ Artist and Community Development programme. Their creative practice also encompasses writing, having published various creative, reflective and research-based texts for publications such as METAL, Penguin, Les Cahiers Luxembourgeois and Centre national de littérature – Lëtzebuerger Literaturarchiv. As a producer, they launched the free-resource space Producer Gathering together with Sally Rose, and worked on the development of the Producer Agreement, the first agreement of its kind in the sector for unions BECTU and ITC. Previously, they produced for independent artists such as Louise Orwin, jamie lewis hadley and Evangelia Kolyra, amongst many others.

Xavier’s performance works include Almost Xav (Southbank Centre), and the trilogy of collaborative shows about belonging and power structures, POST (Ovalhouse, international tour), Pós- (Teatro do Bairro Alto & CITEMOR) and REGNANT (HOME, LiveCollission). They have recently launched a performance-exhibition What Becomes… (METAL, East Street Arts) and a series of multi-media podcasts Slow Cooking. Previously, they collaborated with Tim Etchels, Rosana Cade, The Famous Lauren Barri-Holstein, Needless Alley Collective and presented work with Ovalhouse Theatre, HOME, East Street Arts, Latitude Festival, Tate Modern, METAL Culture, Southbank Centre, The Yard Theatre (UK), Untethered Magic (Kenya), Warehouse9 (DK), CITEMOR Festival, Teatro do Bairro Alto (Portugal), Operastate Festival (Italy), Onassis Culture Centre (Athens), IIT Gujarat (India), Kalamata Dance Festival (Greece), Más Allá Del Muro Festival (Mexico), amongst others.

Xavier is a founder of Migrants in Culture and is a member of BECTU and ITC – Independent Theatre Council.

Website: www.xavierdesousa.co.uk | Twitter: @Xavinisms | Instagram: @Xavinisms