Art & Soul Member Spotlight - Mbeke Waseme

Art & Soul recently spoke to Mbeke Waseme about her art-making process, inspirations, and her proudest moments throughout her art journey.

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What are your earliest memories of art-making?

"I think choosing to walk to school where I could exercise, hear the birds and look at the flowers was my earliest memories of art-making.  I site this example as art making is about how we choose to engage with the world and to navigate our existence.  After all, art can be active interpretation, acts of resistance and a way to cultivate agency."

What/who inspires you the most when it comes to your creativity?

"I am a writer, poet, photographer and content creator. I take my influences from everything and everyone around me. A child chasing a pigeon, as well as a dog chasing the pigeon.  The pigeon! The elder with the walking frame and the elder at the dance class. Singers, other writers and political movements. Chiminandah Adichie is a Nigerian write to speaks my rhythm. I am an educationalist and this comes into everything I do. The levels of family, spiritual, community and ‘formal’ education, all impact how we then go out and show up in the world.

Trigger Alert! I was recently held up with a machete and had my handbag taken with money, phone, oils, purse and all the other bits that lived in that bag. It could have been a set up or a random biker looking for money. He may have been on drugs. I didn’t scream or resist him taking the bag.  It all took about 2 minutes. I have started to write about it to remove the impact from my body and to to support others who have had this experience."

How would you describe your artistic process?

"Process is defined as the ‘entire sequence of actions, changes, psychological states that occur from the initial spark of an idea’. In writing, the process is intense and might happen at a regular time for months, then little, then more, then pause for a day, week or years and then, completion. I have articles, memoirs and poems on my laptop that sometimes start and are completed on a bus journey.  I have others that start and then end with a bang weeks later. Memoir writing is new and there are 3 requiring completion on my laptop right now. These will also have photographs in that I have taken. I rarely sit down and say, I’m going to finish this today as a lot of what gets produced is dynamic and organic.

My photographs are taken and then I revisit them on the screen where I see things which may be a distraction to the eye or lead the looker away from the story I wish to tell. Photographs are so powerful and images of black and brown people have been used for decades to tell one particular story that has been dominated by the negative. This includes the starving emaciated image of babies across Africa and Asia or the over-sexualised images of African male and female bodies. A narrative that serves western, patriarchal capitalist socialites."

In a world that feels increasingly divided, how important do you think community is in art? 

"Community art is key where people can come together, break bread and cake whilst creating. I think the world has been divided for a long time and that I am blessed to access the images and changing narrative that the power of social media allows."

What has been your biggest artistic achievement, or aspect of your art-making you have felt most proud of?

"I have two poetry anthologies and I am working on a third. I have exhibited across England and currently had a selection of images as part of the Ebbsfleet cultural Archives where I was able to begin changing the way in which Kent people are seen with a beautiful selection of portraits Global Majority people. These portraits redefine what being a Kent person means.  I have won competitions with my writing and photographs and whilst external recognition is totally subjective and not the goal, it is always interesting when I am chosen."

What have you learnt from attending Art & Soul’s sessions and meeting other artists there?

"We are all different and art connects us. We are great in the passion, commitment and joy that we bring to the space, whilst sharing personal journeys of joy and challenge."

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We'd like to thank Mbeke for sharing her story with us, and for helping make Art & Soul such a wonderful, thriving creative community.

Art & Soul's in-person sessions are set to return soon, if you are interested in joining these sessions please contact Maddy on maddy.howell@artandsoul.org.uk.