UP On The Bus

“The original idea was to have the office in a container so that if we got kicked out by the landlord we could just move the container but instead of the container we found the bus. So we ended up with UP Nairobi upstairs and Cultural Video Production and Foundation (../../CVF.jpg) downstairs.” The English-style double decker bus can be seen from the road in all its majesty. The UP offices on the top deck has large windows lined with davenports covered (artistically) with old UP copies, notebooks, desktops and laptops. The ../../CVF.jpg floor has a cool back room with loungy benches and a front room by the drivers-seat which also works as a desk. I’m standing with Vincenzo Cavallo, the brains and the brawns behind The Bus, by the drivers-seat. His eyes light up as he describes the journey of bringing the bus to 80 Muthithi road, a space that brings together music production through Box House Media, video production through ../../CVF.jpg and now print media through UP. The Bus is more than aesthetics though; it is cool and edgy and a fun space to work in but more than that, it represents an ideal. “The idea of The Bus is creating a creative space that takes advantage of the liminal urban space (coming from the latin word limen meaning threshold; an intermediate state, phase, or condition.) It’s a temporary creative space that can be created anywhere because you only have to push it somewhere.” “It’s a space that can be occupied temporarily and can be moved from one space to another,” Cavallo goes on to say. “It creates a whole vibe; we built an editing room downstairs, and envisioned a co-working space upstairs that can be converted into a gallery,” We wanted to be independent so we created a liminal urban space; constructing a café/bar and a food court area outside, then we invited guys to come over. We also wanted a space where we could shoot a movie, which we did.” The Bus can be described as the next step in urban lifestyle and as a physical and metaphorical realm where ideas and concepts are in constant states of contestation and negotiation. And with UP, Wazi (music studio) and ../../CVF.jpg behind the wheel the only way is… UP! By Ondi Madete