Thandiwe Muriu participates in the 14th edition of KYOTOGRAPHIE, taking place in Kyoto from April 18 to May 17, 2026.
More Than Half, was created as part of KYOTOGRAPHIE African Artists Residency.
Thandiwe Muriu immersed herself in the tradition of Japanese textile craftsmanship. Historically, textiles have been a meeting point for many cultures, with the influence of trade, global events, and the intermingling of traditions woven into their fibres.
Indeed, Muriu’s native Kenya and Japan have a linked history through textiles, too. The East African kanga was printed by Japanese manufacturers as early as the 1930s, and the tie-dye technique finds parallels in the Japanese shibori. Muriu’s journey through Kyoto’s fabric landscape ultimately inspired a new chapter of her Camo series, More Than Half, which intertwines the bold languages of both the kimono and wax textile. Uniting two visual vocabularies, she reflects on the expansive theme of belonging and one's place in a community. In the exhibition 一如 (Ichinyo), Muriu shifts her focus from camouflage to coexistence, anchoring her subjects in the renowned symbol of Japanese culture, the kimono, while setting them against a widely accepted backdrop of ‘Africanness’, the wax textile. By doing so she aims to recognise the experience of Afro-Asian (Blasian) women, whose identities naturally bridge two cultures. Muriu’s portraits assert that both origins form a singular, unified presence, and channel the spirit of 一如 (Ichinyo) – a Buddhist term meaning “all things are fundamentally one” and expressing that what may appear divided is, at its core, already whole.
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