Quotes from Wangechi Mutu

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.

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.

There's a recycling mentality about my work.

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

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.

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.

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

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 would like to make work for my country, art which is innately Kenyan by being made in Kenya.

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.

If something hurtful enters your body, you create something beautiful to protect yourself from it. That's my philosophy.

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.

Born Free is an idea that came from a place of deep respect for the delicate cycle of life. How incredible to be able to work with gifted designers who, as mothers, recognize what the devastating loss of a child could mean and how easily that loss can be avoided.

Motherhood is the ultimate call to sacrifice.

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

If I don't have an ability to go the places that I have been invited to show at and to speak at and to feature my talent, well then, I am going to stay here in New York City and work my butt off.

I use femaleness as another lens, so I don't even think all my creatures are women; I just think that I bring out the femaleness in them.

We became Homo sapiens not that long ago, from the scientific perspective, and we've retained a lot of our beast nature. We've done all these amazing things in terms of our knowledge base and technology, and now we're flying around and using the Internet. But we're still very animalistic.

For me, collages manage to - it satisfies all of my madness, like I'm able to make these obsessive things, but then I'm also able to make these very strong statements. I don't know what they mean to other people, but in my mind, they have a very strong particular resonance; there's sort of a power.

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.

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 really believe in dreaming and making things from nothing.

When I'm making a collage, there are a lot of things about it that are violent.

Always acknowledge your position in the food chain... They eat because you grow the food.