Barbara Minishi was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya and discovered her passionfor the visual arts after graduation from Daystar University Kenya with a BACommunication (Print Media and Advertising) degree in 2003.
Primarily self taught through exploration & experimentation, she recognized the immersive and transformative experience of power, access, intimacy, connection,belonging and value that photography gifted her as tool to engage with herself, the community and the world.
To date, her sixteen (16) year career has been successful with its diverse selection of personal projects and commissioned work in Fashion, Editorial, Advertising, NGO Documentary, Portraiture specialising in people, products and places.
Barbara considers it priority to consistently explore, experiment and expand her visual perceptive skills, the media she utilises while engaging with the shifting cultural norms, generational belief systems, and the internal and external landscapes within and around us.
In 2010, she underwent training with One Fine Day Films Africa and undertook the Film Production Design course.
Since then she has been Art Director in projects such Netflix season 1 series
‘Sense 8,’ feature film, ‘Nairobi Half Life’, ( in which she won Best Art Director at
the Africa Magic Movie Awards 2014), short film, ‘All that Way for Love’, and ‘Diamonds’ music video for German soul star Y’akoto just to name a few. She also Art Directs all her photography and video work.
Featured by Al Jazeera in a documentary series highlighting New African Photography, she has been recognised as one of the talents of note in Africa.
In addition, she has co-led and mentored a workshop at Design Week Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Fashion Photography and participated as a panel member for the 2018 World Intellectual Property day commemoration in Nairobi themed;
‘Powering Change, Women in Innovation and Creativity’.
Barbara embraces and embodies the responsibility being and practicing as a
visual communicator in this current age dictates.
To her, the “personal is socio-political” and she intends that the work she co-creates leaves a lasting connective, educative and explorative touch point legacy.