Utopia Dystopia is a series that explores the contradictions of identity, belonging, and perception through the lens of the African diaspora. Combining oil paint and image transfer, I use my own image to reflect personal experiences as a Kenyan living in Germany—navigating the tension between outsider and insider perspectives.

In Utopia Dystopia I, the park becomes a metaphor for contested access—its openness evoking privilege, while also symbolizing exclusion when viewed through migrant realities. In Utopia Dystopia II, a figure waits at the Ausländerbehörde (Immigration office), embodying the quiet uncertainty of residency processes and the layered performance of composure within bureaucratic spaces. The recurring image of the Barbados (Cameroonian) sheep references post- and precolonial migration, connecting individual presence to broader historical movement.

The series questions utopia and dystopia not as opposites, but as intertwined conditions shaped by space, history, and identity.