Boniface Mwangi’s Vulture Graffiti uses graffiti art to satirize political figures and bring political issues to the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. The project reproaches Kenya’s political class on issues of governance, ongoing corruption, and exploitation of power. The street graffiti is intended to send a message to Kenya’s citizenry to stand up for their rights.
The vulture depicted in many of these graffiti murals references Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1993 image of a vulture stalking a famine-stricken Sudanese child. Using this image as the central metaphor of the conflict between Kenya’s governed and governors, the Vulture Graffiti has influenced the national debate, provoking Kenyans into thinking more critically about their current leadership.
The graffiti murals were painted overnight, so that Kenyans saw the images in the morning on their way to work. Reactions to the anonymous public statements were immediate and widespread, and within a few months, news and coverage of the Vulture Graffiti campaign spread to international media outlets, including Vice, CNN, and Al Jazeera.