Cyrus Kabiru
Cyrus Kabiru (born 1984, Nairobi) is a self-taught Kenyan multidisciplinary artist whose practice turns urban detritus into visionary sculpture, photography and performance. He first gained international notice for “C-Stunners,” elaborate eyewear fashioned from scrap metal, plastic and circuit boards that he photographs on himself and community collaborators. These Afrofuturist masks interrogate consumer culture while imagining new African identities, and have entered the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum and Zeitz MOCAA.
Working from his open-air studio in Nairobi’s Kariobangi neighbourhood, Kabiru now creates larger assemblages, including bicycles, radios and full-scale costumes, sourced entirely from e-waste. Recent highlights include a solo installation at the 2022 Venice Biennale’s “The Future of Craft” pavilion, the 2023 group show Re:Cycle at London’s Hayward Gallery and a 2024 residency at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute where he debuted “Kibera Constellations,” a series of solar-lit street sculptures.
Kabiru mentors young creatives through Art Orodha Kenya, the non-profit he founded in 2019 to provide tools, studio space and public-art workshops in informal settlements. Named a Quartz Africa Innovator and featured in Google Arts & Culture’s “Black Futures” archive, he continues to prove that Africa’s discarded objects can fuel global conversations on sustainability, technology and self-redefinition.