Winning proposals at CRAWL The World as Seen from the Kibera the Slum — From Being Spoken For to Speaking for Myself —｜INTRO｜EXHIBITION｜BUG

CRAWL is a program for art workers (planners) organized by Art Center BUG, operated by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. By approaching project proposals as communication tools, participants engage in discussions with mentors and take part in peer reviews. The program connects artworkers with opportunities and spaces through avenues such as network building, and aims to form connections that lead to future professional opportunities.

We are pleased to announce the exhibition “The World as Seen from the Kibera the Slum — From Being Spoken For to Speaking for Myself —” by Miggy Sakata, selected for the CRAWL open call program, starting on April 25, 2026. Young people living in the large slums of Kibera, in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi, use videos and photographs taken with their own hands to challenge the notion of slums as places that must be spoken for, and instead assert their agency as subjects who speak for themselves.

When asked about their dreams for the future, many young people answer “journalist,” reflecting the sense that their existence has been ignored and marginalized by society. With cameras gathered through donations, and technical guidance from professional photographers and filmmakers, these young people began documenting their own lives: their joys, struggles, work, and hopes. This is not merely an act of documentation; it is a process of reclaiming the power to speak. It is also an act of redefining the image of the Kibera slums, which have historically been shaped and consumed through external perspectives and are now rearticulated by their own hands.

This exhibition presents more than 100 works, accompanied by video explanations narrated by the artists themselves. Throughout the exhibition period, we will create opportunities for dialogue—for example, inviting visitors to submit questions to young people living in Kibera and sharing their responses at a later date—thereby fostering a space where a reciprocal exchange of storytelling can emerge between creators and viewers. By bringing perspectives from Kenya’s slums—long perceived as distant from central Tokyo’s white-cube galleries—into BUG, the exhibition seeks to reexamine the fundamental power of expression and the joy it can generate.

About the exhibition

Reexamining a landscape and our assumptions

For many, the word “slum” may evoke stereotypes related to poverty, crime, and hopelessness. However, within such places—often lumped together under a single label—there are varied moments spanning the daily lives of the people, including their joys and triumphs.

In this exhibition, artists born and raised in Kibera create works from their own perspectives, depicting the daily landscapes and stories they each want to tell.

Kibera is known around the world as a massive urban slum, and many artists from abroad have created works against its backdrop. In this exhibition, however, Kibera is not treated as mere content or scenery; instead, it highlights the subjectivity of the people who live there, allowing them to tell the stories of their own community.

The brilliance of expression that emerges within limitations

Many of the exhibiting artists do not have their own cameras or computers, instead creating works with rented equipment paid for out of their own pockets and with limited data. Moreover, there are not many instances in which there is sufficient storage for saving higher-resolution data, nor is there an environment that easily allows for numerous works to be saved in high resolution.

For this reason, viewers may notice resolution and editing differences among the exhibited works. However, these are not due to variations in technique or desire, but arise from the unique circumstances, such as the equipment, software, and network conditions, available to the artists. In any environment, people express themselves and create. At the same time, the limitations of tools and techniques influence aspects such as pixelation, resolution, and the breadth of cinematic expression.

Experiencing a change in perspective and judgement

We present a viewing experience in which the creative environment behind each work can influence and change the way the same work is seen.

If one views a work without knowing its production environment or social context, formal elements such as image and sound quality, as well as editing techniques, may be perceived solely as indicators of technical proficiency. However, once one understands the specific conditions under which these elements were created, one’s perspective on the work shifts.

This exhibition aims to provide an opportunity for viewers to reexamine the unspoken assumptions underlying their evaluations and the way they view art by engaging with forms of expression that cannot be fully captured by formal criteria such as resolution or editing techniques alone.

Planning by

Miggy SAKATA

Representative Director, SHIFT80, Nonprofit Organization / Co-CEO & Creative Director, cotatsu inc.

After working at SIer, an advertising production company, and Hakuhodo Kettle, SAKATA founded cotatsu, inc. She is also the founder and Representative Director of SHIFT80, an ethical creative collective supporting African orphans, impoverished children, and women she encountered during her travels.

In addition to writing essays and delivering lectures on travel and career development, SAKATA practices a location-independent lifestyle, working while traveling across Japan in a camper van that serves as both her mobile office and home.

Books: The round-the-world travelogue Tabi ga nakereba shindeita [I Would Have Died Without Travel] (KK Bestsellers), selected for Best Travel Books 2020, and Kawaii ware niwa tabi wo ase yo, Solo tabi no susume [Let My Cute Self Travel: The Case for Solo Travel] (Sangyo Henshu Center), among others.

Awards: Forbes JAPAN 2025 “NEXT100: 100 Ways to Save the World”; Value Design Contest Grand Prix and Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award; 11th Women CEO J300 Award; Cannes Lions; New York Festivals International Advertising Awards; Spikes Asia; Ad Fest; Dentsu Advertising Awards, and more. ACC 2022 Judge.

Profile on Scrapbox

A note from organizer Miggy Sakata

This exhibition arose from approximately 13 years of involvement in educational support and creative activities in the Kibera area of Nairobi, Kenya, and reflects on the idea that there are experiences and landscapes that can only be conveyed by the people who live there. It was devised and developed with the objective of documenting and communicating daily life and society as seen from the perspectives of young people and artists living in Kibera.

One specific initiative related to this exhibition is the KIBERACTION project, led by film maker Tsunehey Ikeya and photographer Ryo Masachika, which collects and donates no-longer-used cameras from Japan and conducts video and photography training in Kibera. As part of the larger exhibition project, workshops were held in April 2025 and January 2026 featuring lectures on the technical basics of filmmaking and still photography, as well as the development of proposals by participants and hands-on photography practice.

The donated cameras are currently being used for sustained creative activities, with local residents managing them collectively through a rental system. Among the workshop participants, some young people took the initiative to write their own scripts, recruit performers, and produce short films using the donated equipment. Witnessing this firsthand, I have come to realize that the residents of Kibera are beginning to create works that tell the story of their community based on their own experiences and perspectives.

Building on these initiatives, we sought to realize an exhibition in which artists living in Kibera could speak about their community from their own perspectives. This opportunity was made possible when the project was selected for CRAWL, a program for art workers (curators) organized by Art Center BUG, leading to an exhibition opportunity in Tokyo.

In response, we issued a broad call for submissions not only to workshop participants but also to creators already active as photographers and filmmakers in Kibera, inviting applications from those who wished to share their work and perspectives through an exhibition in Japan. As a result, we received 32 applications, from which we ultimately selected 12 participating artists after conducting an application review and in-person auditions.

Through the photographs and video works selected through this process and presented in this exhibition, visitors will encounter expressions rooted in the experiences and perspectives of young people living in Kibera.

◾️Miggy Sakata’s initiatives to date
Since her first visit to Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2013, Miggy Sakata has been building close ties with the local community. In 2018, she began providing menstrual products and supporting menstrual health education for female students who were forced to miss school due to financial difficulties that prevented them from obtaining these supplies. In 2022, with the aim of establishing a sustainable support system, she launched the ethical creative collective SHIFT80 and has since been conducting creative projects in collaboration with the people of Kibera. To date, she has created opportunities for collaborative projects—such as photography and video production—in partnership with local residents and Japanese photographers and filmmakers.

Since then, Sakata has continued her efforts to support educational opportunities, including scholarship programs, assistance with school operations, and support for the management of a rescue center for children.

Furthermore, recognizing that many people in Kibera work in the informal sector—such as day labor—due to limited employment opportunities, she has also been working to support the establishment of local micro-businesses.

Through these ongoing engagements and collaborative experiences, Sakata came to recognize the importance of not only creating works with external creators, but also providing opportunities for people living in Kibera to speak about their community from their own perspectives. This realization is what led to the conception of this project.

Exhibiting Artists

Asinina Ibrahim
Big_davido
Dizze Dizze
Frankline Olando
Ismael Photography
Mc Popo
Ramkalino KE
Ramadhan Said Ali
Sir.jeree
Steve Banner
Vin sekani
8KTV KIBRATV