A little bit of history about the Embassy's Bomoa Ukuta Competition

In 1989, the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Germany was torn down in a peaceful revolution, leading to Germany’s reunification on 3 October 1990. It paved the way to a free, more inclusive, liberal and progressive society in all of Germany. This was possible due to the great engagement of courageous members of East German civil society who came together in a vision to overcome the obstacles that divided our country – against all odds at the time.

For the past years the German Embassy Nairobi has asked young creative film makers to produce short films about the barriers in society, politics or culture that they felt the need to tear down. The submitted movies were judged by a jury of professionals from the film industry, the Goethe Institute, the Kenya Film Commission and the Embassy. Last year we did a screening of the best submissions we had received over the years at the Goethe Institute in Nairobi.

This year, we intend to venture into the field of Fine Art (Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking) and Photography. The idea that arts have the power to advance our critical thinking and inspire us to creative solutions “out of the box” is captured in the remarks of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (2017) on the contribution of arts to society:

Bomoa Ukuta 2024 - What is holding us back from transitioning into a greener future?

Today, the world needs to come together in the face of climate change and take resolute action against this major threat to humanity. More than many other countries Kenya has suffered from cyclical crises of prolonged droughts and flash floods as a direct consequence of climate change. Germany, being one of the greatest greenhouse gas emitters of the past, has committed on a path to green industrialization and to ambitious targets of greenhouse gas reduction.

Kenya and Germany are partners in climate action, undertaking joint initiatives for the sustainable development of Kenya’s economy and tapping its green potential. At COP28 in Dubai the world gathered and agreed on the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emissions cuts and scaled-up finance. However, the most recent report by the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change) suggest that there is a more than 50% chance that global temperature rise will reach or surpass 1.5 degrees C°between 2021 and 2040.

What is holding us back from “going green”, how can we overcome it to pave the way into a greener future and to leave our children an inhabitable planet? Our Ambassador, H.E. Sebastain Groth, challenges young Kenyan artists to also think about how we can confront this common challenge togehter:

Terms and conditions - how to participate

All secondary school students in Kenya are invited to submit an image of their artwork by 8 September. The artwork can take many forms: painting/drawing/etching, sculpture, assemblage, montage, collage or photograph.

Since we intend to ship the best artworks to Nairobi for an exhibition on the occasion of the Day of National Unity (German National Day), your artwork should not exceed the dimension of 100x100x70 cm and not weigh more than 7 Kilogramm. Please send detailed pictures (not exceeding 3 MB size in total) or a downlaod link to these pictures to pr-100@nair.diplo.de .

Selected artists will be invited to put their artwork on display at the Embassy's reception to celebrate the German National Day. A jury will select the three best artworks who will be awarded a prize.