Maggie Otieno: Sojourner: The Difference Is the Same

Efie Gallery presents Sojourner: The Difference Is the Same, an exhibition of new works by Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno. This marks Otieno’s first solo presentation with the gallery since it began representing her in 2024. Her practice spans nearly three decades and centres on the transformation of reclaimed and distressed materials.

As one of Kenya’s leading contemporary artists, Otieno is known for her large-scale public installations across Nairobi, including works situated outside Garden City Mall and at several of the city’s train stations. Working across wood, metal, and mixed media, her semi-abstract forms explore layered narratives of history, memory, human interaction, and environmental survival.

Featured in the exhibition new works produced at the artist’s studio in Karen, Nairobi—located within a larger art centre she both designed and built—centred around railway sleepers: historic timbers tied to East Africa’s colonial past. More than 150 years old, these timbers travelled from India to Kenya in the late nineteenth century to construct railway lines, carrying with them the stories of travellers, labourers, and communities.

Also included are works created during a residency at El Anatsui Studio in Temu, Ghana, in summer 2025. Sculptures made from fragments of wooden canoes bear traces of memory and passage; some are hinged to resemble books, evoking the turning of a page and the opening of a new chapter.

Otieno’s process is intuitive and deeply responsive, guided by the scars, weight, and presence of her materials. Together, these works function as vessels of remembrance and renewal, grounding social and historical reflection in physical form.

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