For her Zócalo Sketchbook, Ng takes us below the waves to experience her near-hallucinatory ocean dwellers. “The inspiration for this series of cartilaginous animal illustrations stems from the intricate textures, fluid forms, and delicate details of creatures like snails, octopuses, and jellyfish,” she tells Zócalo. “Their graceful yet powerful presence in the underwater world presents a captivating blend of mystery and beauty, ideal for exploring in a minimalist, illustrative style. “

Ng’s illustrations combine stylized line art with gently surreal color choices to create an illusion of detail and specificity in our minds—by showing us less, Ng makes us see more.

The post Surreal Sea Creatures appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

For her Sketchbook pieces, Holländer explores the subject of balance, a theme that she tells Zócalo has become increasingly important in her life. Her playful collages reflect on the space between work and play, routine and spontaneity, hard and soft. “It is not an either/or,” she explains, “it is a balance between poles, sometimes a wobbly act on a thin rope.”

Consider how each composition takes what could be a strict juxtaposition and rearranges competing symbols into precarious Jenga towers of philosophy. It’s an everyday balancing act that aptly captures life in the year 2024.

The post Nature’s Balancing Act appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Kuo’s Sketchbook visualizes the beauty of the dishes prepared for a Pān-toh, the traditional Taiwanese roadside banquet. “I put the chef’s art into illustrations in the hope I can connect hundreds and thousands of people with art as the chef does with food,” Kuo tells Zócalo.

To achieve the organic look of her illustrations, Kuo takes her digital drawings, prints them out on a Risograph printer, a high-volume color copier that uses ink instead of toner, and then rescans the prints. Risograph printers, which originated in the 1980s, produce prints that are recognizable by their grainy, but vibrant colors that are often slightly out of register, giving the work a rougher look than modern offset printing. In recent years, many old units have been modified into networked printers and have become popular with artists and designers.

The post Picturing Pān-toh appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Take a close look at each object: What might appear to be leaves reveal themselves to be silk and velvet; stalks and grasses are rendered from cotton and corduroy. “I used vintage fabric samples, scraps from altered pants, and other materials I had been hoarding,” Lazarus explains. “The red flowers are from ‘An Intimate Evening with Pamela Des Barres,’ the pink flower is from my late great grandmother’s rose bush, and the mosses are inspired by those I met in Eugene, Oregon, on a recent family road trip.”

The post Floral Fabrications appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Wood’s Zócalo Sketchbook imagines “what nature might look like if it insisted on innovating itself to extinction.” The series was inspired by OpenAI’s release of Sora, a way to generate photorealistic video sequences based on text prompts, earlier this year. 

“As a creative, it chilled me to my core,” Wood says. “When I saw where we are headed, I thought, Why are we so addicted to relentless innovation? Why are we absolutely determined to ‘improve’ our way to extinction? It got me thinking, Would anything else in nature act the way we humans do?”

Wood’s Sketchbook considers the impact of the increasing incursion of generative AI on society. Rich in narrative details, each of his illustrations acts like a doorway into classic science fiction stories that ask us to reflect on our own actions in the world.

The post Innovative Extinction appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

For his Zócalo Sketchbook, Katrodia brings us a vibrant burst of springtime energy. This comes in the form of complex grids of form and exuberant colors, which bring his stylized plants and butterflies to life. “Looking at the natural world, I’ve always been fascinated how simplicity forms the complex,” he says of his Sketchbook pieces. “In these illustrations, I’ve aimed to depict nature’s intertwined and interconnected life through a delicate balance of shapes, lines, and colors.”

While Katrodia produced this work digitally, keep an eye out for how he uses visible pen strokes and colors that are slightly off from the outlines to maintain the feeling of a human being making human marks in physical space.

The post Shapes of Spring appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Acrobatic troops across Kenya’s coast continue to perform at star-studded venues while struggling to support themselves financially. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

The majority of acrobats working on Kenya’s coast today come from impoverished backgrounds. They chose this work because it allows them to celebrate their cultural identity and heritage. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

Though formal training centers don’t exist across the coast, acrobats form brotherhoods of performers to fine-tune their choreography and support one another. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

Kenyan acrobatics nods to both the long history of circus artistry in the African continent and its modern evolution. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

Kenya’s acrobats have toured the world, appearing in venues from Mexico to Israel. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

Over the last two decades, the salaries for performers have remained largely stagnant in Kenya. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

To ensure this profession has a sustainable future, acrobats are advocating for fair pay and for Kenya to recognize the circus arts as an integral part of its national heritage. (Photograph by Sabine Skiba)

It’s showtime at one of Kenya’s five-star resort hotels.

Tourists from around the world move in small groups to the performance area next to the pool to see the evening’s headliner: Burning Spear Acrobats.*

The five members showcase the art and skill of Kenyan acrobatics. They adjust themselves into elaborate human pyramids. They fly through the air in perfect synchronicity as the ropes turn in opposite directions during the double rope skipping act. And they create an impressive tower of stacking chairs and hand balance from one to another to great heights.

Their performance is both a glimpse into the centuries-old performance traditions from Kenya and other African countries, with accounts dating back to at least the 14th century, and the evolution of its modern form, which developed in Kenya alongside its tourism industry in the 1960s.

But the future of this art form is in jeopardy. While resorts across Kenya’s coast sell tourists on these shows, they do not pay their performers a living wage. Because of that, Kenyan acrobats don’t know how much longer their show can go on.

The majority of acrobats working on Kenya’s coast today come from impoverished backgrounds and have only basic schooling. Though the path to becoming an acrobat is less financially stable than working in construction, as gardeners, or as drivers of motorcycles or tuk-tuks, those who seek it out do so because it enables them to be creative and steel their bodies, while taking pride in their cultural identity and heritage.

To break into the industry, young Kenyans will approach relatives and friends who already perform to mentor them. The troupes’ training is self-driven. They meet on the soft sand beaches before the heat of the day to practice and then again in the afternoons to fine-tune choreography. They have no facilities, no safety equipment, and no health insurance. The Burning Spear Acrobats were fortunate in that they started in a north coast village that had a training location with a pole and a rudimentary stage. But though formal training centers do not exist on the Kenyan coast, acrobats form brotherhoods of performers who support each other in their quest to live their lives with dignity.

Troupes tend to have a fixed day of the week performing in the various hotels, for weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly engagements. Successful troupes will work five to six days a week. Others are not so fortunate and have to make do with one to three performances. The frequency of performing is also dependent on the tourism seasons; the low season provides only scant opportunities and is a tough time for performing artists.

The unpredictability makes international contracts more prized. Over the years, many Kenyan acrobats have performed in tourism venues from Mexico to Israel, on cruise ships, and at international festivals. Despite being a fixture on the cruise circuit around the world, Kenyan—and African acrobatics more broadly—have yet to receive the mainstream recognition they deserve. Still even the base-level international contracts they take provides them with some financial stability. Most acrobats who have worked internationally for a year or more are able to save and acquire a small plot or build a small dwelling on ancestral land.

But in Kenya, the profession is struggling to survive. Part of this is because of the state of the tourism industry. Over the past two decades, the country has been hit hard by terrorist attacks, notably the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing, the 2013 attack on the Nairobi Westgate shopping mall, and a series of al-Shabaab strikes. More recently, the COVID-19 crisis handed a significant setback to the sector. As hotels have tried to maximize their profits amid this uncertainty, they’ve done so by not adjusting their performance budgets to the rising costs of living.

Over the past 20 years, salaries for performers have remained largely stagnant. As reported by senior artists, salaries in 2003 ranged from 1,500 to 3,000 KES (Kenyan Shillings) per show for a group of five (the equivalent of roughly $20 to $39, though that represented a higher purchasing power back then). Salaries have increased only marginally since; today they range between 1,500 and 5,000 KES for most shows (roughly $10 to $32 per group per show), which amounts to a de facto decrease.

Meanwhile, the cost of living has skyrocketed in Kenya. Food inflation has been especially dramatic, averaging 9.74% per year from 2010 until 2023. This has left performers living hand-to-mouth, with hunger knocking on the door, especially during the off-season. The fact that the situation is especially bad in hotels catering to audiences of predominantly white tourists from the global north is reminiscent of colonialist practices of showcasing “exotic” people and animals. While complaints about low wages have increased across the working-class population in Kenya, acrobats and other performing artists are particularly vulnerable.

Ethnic discrimination also plays a role in these worsening conditions. Performers are overwhelmingly members of the Mijikenda, an ethnic group consisting of nine distinctive peoples who live along the coast. Since independence, the ruling parties of Kenya have invested heavily in their own ethnic constituencies, while coastal Kenyans—without sufficient political power in the capital city of Nairobi—have had to put up with pot-holed roads, poor healthcare, underfunded education, and a general lack of investment. The overall situation has also led to the performers and other members of the Mijikenda to be treated poorly by some of the hotel management staff and entertainment managers, who are responsible for determining performers’ salaries. Several of these managers have even taken small cuts from the salaries of acrobats. Most hotels do not allow tipping after the show, and where it is allowed, the result varies and are not enough to supplement incomes.

Combined, these factors have led to a precarious financial situation that if it continues, will push the culture of acrobatics in the country to disintegrate. That would be a loss for Kenya and the world.

One step to rectifying the situation is for Kenya to recognize the circus arts as an integral part of its national heritage. Neighboring Tanzania, for example, is already investing in training institutes for its acrobats, who also tour internationally. South Africa houses the renowned Zip Zap Circus, the Zip Zap Circus School, a permanent venue for circus arts in Johannesburg, and an Acrobatics Federation of South Africa that specializes in acrobatic dance, among others.

Currently in Kenya, the nonprofit Sarakasi Trust Foundation is the only major development organization investing in the circus arts. Located in Nairobi, its Sarakasi Dome—which has dance studios, an auditorium, and various multi-purpose spaces—offers training that empowers artists creatively and economically, including education on social entrepreneurship and life skills. More such support is needed for acrobats on the coast. For now, the performers are left to continue to push to find solutions to their dire situation, despite the many obstacles in their way. For example, a well-established advocacy association they created was shut down in 2015 as part of a larger government crackdown on community-based and other non-governmental organizations that were suspected to have ties to terrorist organizations. Performers continue to attempt to organize and negotiate with hotels, but such campaigns come with a risk because artists fear retaliation and that they will lose their jobs if they become associated with such movements.

The result is that Burning Spear Acrobats, along with other troupes on the coast, continue to perform at star-studded venues while juggling other jobs to get by. They continue in the hopes that Kenyan acrobatics, and African acrobatics more broadly, are given their rightful place in the pantheon of awe-inspiring circus arts of the world, and receive fair compensation for such work. As one of the members of Burning Spear Acrobats said recently, “People need to understand that acrobatics is a serious career, that it requires commitment and discipline. We deserve respect for our work.”

The post Don’t Close the Curtains on Kenya’s Acrobats appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

For her Zócalo Sketchbook, Franson offers a snapshot of fall in Bryce Canyon in pencil and watercolor. She includes a Golden-mantled ground squirrel, sharing with Zócalo a humorous encounter she had with one while walking in the forest behind her cabin—catching the squirrel with its cheeks stuffed, “busy storing seeds for the cold winter ahead.” She also includes all three of Bryce Canyon’s species of Nuthatches (there are only four species in the entire country). “They can all be seen out our front door, busily caching pine seeds into the thick bark of the ponderosas, hammering away like little carpenters,” Franson says of the Nuthatches, adding that they “create the soundtrack of the season.”

And, of course, her Sketchbook features illustrations of the seeds themselves—“an essential part,” Franson says, “of this interdependent web.” She describes the seeds to Zócalo as “lovely, thin-winged like cicadas, that spiral down to the ground, sometimes getting caught in a beam of light.” The forest floor is full of them now, Franson continues, “as if the trees threw confetti everywhere.”

The post Stocking up for the Season appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

For her Zócalo Sketchbook, Glasson presents a series of abstract compositions that represent the natural world in the tactile intricacy of her chosen materials. “For this series, I have abandoned the realism of my portraiture work and am using natural and synthetic inks to create playful abstract shapes,” she tells Zócalo. She describes the process as “totally different” from how she usually works: “With these, I give all my attention to materials and colors,” she says. “They are wildly fun to make, and at times even meditative.”

Glasson’s Sketchbook invites you to zoom in close to get lost in the fjords and forests of her paint, or to stand back and find yourself face-to-face with ethereal creatures from other worlds or dimensions. Glasson finds pleasure in how open the work is to interpretation and how the shapes can “sometimes reference the natural world and other times seem otherworldly or just slightly ridiculous.”

The post Inkblot Explosion appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

For her Zócalo Sketchbook, Yamazaki gives us a series of flowers and the caterpillars and butterflies who love them. Her playful style combines the looseness of children’s doodles with sophisticated compositions and color choices. “I wanted to play with the idea of bringing the natural world indoors in an imaginative way,” she says. “I used the imagery of blooming, metamorphosis, along with smiley faces to share a hopeful message of growth and positivity.”

The post Blooming Smiles appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.