Sojourner: The Difference is the Same | Maggie Otieno

Opening 14 April, Sojourner: The Difference is the Same marks Maggie Otieno’s first solo exhibition with Efie Gallery and presents a new body of mixed media sculptural works that build on her sustained engagement with reclaimed material and its embedded histories.

As one of Kenya’s leading contemporary artists, Otieno is widely recognised for her large scale public installations across Nairobi. For nearly three decades, her practice has centred on the transformation of distressed and reclaimed matter, most notably 150 year old railway sleeper wood. In this exhibition, she expands this material language through layered sculptural compositions that bring various elements into dialogue, extending her exploration of memory, healing, and inherited histories.

Working through processes of assembling and reconfiguring, Otieno shifts reclaimed materials beyond their original function, allowing them to inhabit new sculptural forms. What once signified movement and infrastructure is redirected toward stillness and contemplation, where fragmentation, and balance shape the work’s presence.

Sojourner: The Difference is the Same reflects on continuity and change, on what is carried forward and what is reshaped over time. Through the quiet transformation of material, Otieno invites viewers into a space where difference and sameness coexist, and where sculpture becomes a vessel for memory and passage.