Wangechi Mutu

“I love magazines because they're so dispensable, and they're so quickly consumed. In that way, they're quite honest. They're unashamed about how small an amount of time they're trying to keep our attention.”

“Beautiful things can happen when you act intuitively and instinctively in a moment of anxiety and do something radical.”

“I do all I can to make my world a better place to live in for me and for my kids as well.”

“I have this amateur side attraction to, and interest in, the sciences and biology and physics and evolution. Paleontology is of interest to me. I'm interested in the way these fields have helped us understand how we are human and why we are human.”

“There are ways to speak that can transform things, which has less to do with authority but is more about resourcefulness and ingenuity.”

“I am inspired and affected by Aspen, the light and the landscape and the natural world.”

“I am fascinated by these ocean-grown folks. On the coast, there's all this cross-pollination of ideas. Someone thinks they saw something. One person's madness is reiterated by another, and a story is born. The rumour becomes a substitute for news.”

“Equal rights for women and queer folks!”

“We have to redefine what we mean when we say, 'Who are your people?' 'Where are you from?'”

“I'm very much a person that believes that there's something that was introduced into Kenya and Africa as we know it that has made us despise our bodies.”

“I'm not a documentarian. I'm not a photojournalist.”

“My work is often a therapy for myself - a working out of these issues as a black woman. And a way of allowing other black women to work through this kind of stigmatization as they look through the images and feel how distorted or contorted they might be in the public eye.”

“When certain things reach a tipping point, and you know people's lives are in danger, you have to decide that it's time to speak up, and you have to say something loud and clear.”

“Often, there's an emphasis in my work, and it's sort of the celebrating of the body.”

“I'm big into multifunctional clothing.”

“So many a time, I would find myself stuck in my studio while, in another country, my exhibitions were opening and I was being celebrated.”

“I think there is something about countries and nations that is hard to define. And, in fact, that's probably why we create such massive boundaries - because it's so slippery where they begin and where they end.”

“I feel like I've spent a lot of time imagining home and thinking about a dream-like place, as opposed to a real place, because that's not what I was able to do, meaning go home or be home.”

“Being taught to despise your body is being taught to perhaps admire someone else's body more than yours - being taught that your body is good for certain things and not for others.”

“I juxtapose and slice up reality and fiction quite easily. I'm aware that it is up for grabs and a powerful tool to explain how we take control.”