In This
Valley of
Dying
Stars

Hosted by the African Arts Trust, Nairobi and tastefully curated by Niklas Obermann, the show that is under the Nairobi Print Project opened on 12th June 2026 and is a poetic meditation on landscape and memory.

Born in Nairobi – Kenya, Jess is an artist and scholar. Living and working in Chicago, her practice is guided by the studies on Black modernisms and visual culture from a post-colonial perspective. In keeping with this, this solo show is an open invitation for the viewer to pose, examine and reflect on the subtle connections between place, memory and identity.

Identity is a mainstay in the work Jess creates, and in this show, she tackles this poignant topic by employing mediums of contemporary African printmaking, casting/sculpture and sound. The artist is one of the continent’s foremost printmakers and the structures in her work possess power which is inscribed into bodies, landscapes and systems of representation.

Jess also provides hope in this series, because by studying the past, with its disappointments caused by unkept promises, society and individuals can look into the future and seek to remedy this by examining alternative geographies. The tainted past is not an error, then, but a lesson in how not to do it.

Jess Atieno: In This Valley of Dying Stars

09 JULY 2026

The overriding emotion behind the show is that even if this space leaves us in a bit of limbo, we are well equipped through interrogation of the past, to recreate a future in which, all factors considered, we can thrive and succeed.

Once shining so brightly, “This Valley of Dying Stars”

“This Valley of Dying Stars” will continue showing at The African Arts Trust until 16th August, 2026 and we would like to encourage you to visit this powerful exhibition of how, like tapestry, our lives are interwoven by the past and the future, in a collective hope for a better tomorrow from an artist who has represented these themes so strongly, Jess Atieno.

IN RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION

Our identity is interwoven with the structures around us

Hindsight is 20/20, clear, unperturbed and can be dissected without the curiosities of speculation. The future, however, isn’t. In this premise, Chicago-based, Kenyan-born artist Jess Atieno delivers her most recent solo show: In This Valley of Dying Stars.

The exhibition examines landscapes and structures as tapestries to our lives

Starting 12th June and ending on August 16th, “In This Valley of Dying Stars”

Jess Atieno talks about her work to Helmuth Rossler, owner of Red Hill Gallery.

“An impossible space” …is where Jess views life through the lens of retrospection and the future