“You Will Find Your People Here” with Dr. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato and Clare Loveday

The Wilson Center

On today’s episode of New Security Broadcast, ECSP Director Lauren Risi and Distinguished Fellow Dr. Blair Ruble talk with Clare Loveday and Dr. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato about their collaborative installation, “You Will Find Your People Here,” currently on view at La Biennale di Venezia. Loveday is a Johannesburg-based composer, and Kihato is an urban sociologist who specializes in gender, migration, and governance; they worked in concert with pianist, Mareli Stolp, and Ghanian artist, Awo Tsegah, to bring the installation to life at the Biennale. Drawing from the migrant women’s testimonies in Kihato’s book, Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Everyday Life in an In-Between City, the project combines piano, spoken word, vocal utterances to share their stories. The performance is complemented by artwork and maps designed by Tsegah and informed by data obtained from the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab. “You Will Find Your People Here” illustrates the value of using an interdisciplinary and creative process to convey the complex lives of migrant women, and the project speaks eloquently on how migration and mobility connect the global to local, transforming our cities and politics alike.