Growing Knowledge: Exhibition Kisumu & UN-HABITAT

Towards the end of our field studies in Kenya, we presented our work at two exhibitions, one in Kisumu and another one at UN-HABITAT in Nairobi. These exhibitions were done together with the other project-groups in the Reality Studio course. Furthermore, a group of students from Maseno University also presented their project, a development strategy for Molo town.

The exhibition in Kisumu took place at the Sports Ground, in the city center. A lot of people showed interest for our project, Growing Knowledge. Our aim with the exhibition was to gather as many opinions and feedback as possible from the visitors. Therefore we had, except for a brief project description, two parts of our exhibition that was interactive. The first part consisted of several sketches showing different farming methods. We asked the exhibition visitors to tell us their opinion by placing stickers next to the methods - a yellow sticker if they liked the particular method, or a red sticker if they did not like it. Whenever possible, we also tried to ask them why they thought so, to start a discussion and to get more detailed feedback. The second part of our interactive section was about gathering opinions in a similar way, but instead of farming methods we had sketches showing various activities or aspects that could be present at a school, e.g. assembly area, games, quiet places, cleanliness etc. We asked the visitors what aspects they thought was most and what was least important.

When the exhibition ended in the afternoon, we were completely exhausted by talking constantly for several hours. However, we were also very happy for all the interesting discussions that took place during the day, and also for the feedback that people gave us. The summarize of the feedback showed us that the most popular farming methods (of the ones that we presented) were: Cultivation bench, Cultivation in sacks, Pergola, Rainwater harvesting, Espalier and Inter-cropping. This and other, more detailed, feedback have helped us in our continued work. We are very grateful to everyone who invested time to look at our project, to talk to us and give us feedback. We are especially grateful that so many students and teachers from St. Joseph Secondary School were able to attend the exhibition.