Wuh.ey - “Nyumba ya Kumbukumbu”

From the series: African Fusion
Paper: Hahnemühle Fine Art Archival Print
Sheet size: 60 × 60 cm
Year: Edition of 2025
Edition: 3 + 1 AP

Wuh.ey – “Nyumba ya Kumbukumbu”

A woman stands at the center of a museum, surrounded by sculptures that look as if they were carved from history itself. She wears a monumental textile crown, a ruff made of wool and dye, and a shiny, pink-blue down jacket over it – the sacred meets street style, the past meets the present. "Nyumba ya Kumbukumbu" – the House of Memory – is a manifesto about visibility, ownership, and cultural reclamation.

Here, Wuh.ey presents the body as a living museum. The woman is neither object nor observer, but a counter-power: She stands among the statues as if she were questioning them—or bringing them liberation. Her gaze, hidden behind large sunglasses, is directed directly toward our time. The clothing is both armor and ritual, a remix of colonial history, fashion, and spiritual empowerment.

The gallery becomes a stage for a return. Where African artifacts were once removed and exhibited, their living heir now appears—a body that carries history, not merely displays it. The fabric, the colors, the posture: everything points to the power of cultural memory, which is not preserved but passed on.

"Nyumba ya Kumbukumbu" is a reversal in visual form: The museum, a place of collecting and preserving, becomes a resonant space for reappropriation. Here, it's no longer the archive that speaks, but memory itself – proud, loud, fashionable, untouchable.

In this work, Wuh.ey combines fashion, myth, and power into a new visual language. It's not a protest, but a rebirth: the return of one's origins to the center of the art world—confident, beautiful, unstoppable.