Shela Hat Contest 2023

Last weekend for the 7th time in 13 years the Shela Hat Contest took place, an extraordinary hat-making competition on the Kenyan island of Lamu organised by Mr. Herbert Menzer a retired restaurateur and his friend Mr Roland Klemp a photographer. This biennial contest started in 2010 during the build of his first house, inspired by the strange fusions of head protection worn by the builders at the build site. Both gentlemen are from Germany, and responsible for creating this contest, organising the event and putting up the prize money, which nearly totalled Ksh 500,000/- this year, not an easy thing on an island with very limited resources, so of course this event has contributed greatly to the Lamu economy and environment by bringing in tourists, creating a sense of community and excitement around the festival and cleaning up the beaches and oceans in their vicinity.

Since the contest’s conception in 2010, every other year the Shela community comes together to celebrate creativity and innovation. Although the event which started out as a light-hearted affair over the years has evolved into something that allows each hat to convey some sort of environmental or political message about the community’s most pressing needs and worries, via a surprising medium: hat-making. The contest invites members of the community to create a hat using objects found in the local area.

Although activism is a tangible theme of the day, the event remains for most part a light-hearted community initiative and a moment of solidarity, collaboration and of course, competition. The prize money is a significant amount, so much so that sometimes a group of mates get together to design a ‘collective’ hat and split the winnings. As you can see from the portraits, designs vary from complex structures crafted over a three-month period in the build-up to the competition, to impromptu last-minute headgear fashioned from a found palm frond and discarded flip-flop.

It’s also important to note that most of the contestants are not artists or artistically trained. The skills and creative talent are often self-taught.

The brief given to the entrants was that the hat should be made from found materials so the contest hats were created from items like chewing gum wrappers, found lighters, flip flops, plastic bottles, cement bags, plastic pipes, nylon bags, bones, shells, plastic, wires, palm leaves, fabrics, coral, there was even a very lovely hat made from egg shells.

On the day

The event draws large crowds from all the surrounding islands and the beach was not visible under the hoards of people and their feet, even 4 politicians were in attendance, and they dutifully sat through the proceedings until they were given a chance to hand out the prize money and grab the mike.
Nils Korschen, Caroline Grout de Beaufort and Niketa Fazal made up the judging panel this year. Both Caroline and Niketa have many years experience working as creatives in the advertising sector but are now living and working as artists in Kenya, while Nils was the returning senior judge providing guidance on repeat entries, the materials used and construction quality criteria.
The event was scheduled for Saturday 18th of February at Shela Beach right in front of the famous Peponi Hotel and took the whole day from 9.00am – 4.00pm, this was largely dictated by the rising tide and could have ended earlier.
The contestants lined up as per their registration number and walked past the judges showing off their hat and occasionally taking it off so that it could be closely inspected, the judges gave each entrant a score out 10.

12 prize winners won Ksh 5,000 each
The final 8 received 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, 80,000 and 100,000.

The overall winning hat was made out of plastic bottles put together in a clever design with colour coordination and it even had a light flashing inside of it, while second prize was one by a scorpion hat made entirely out of flip flops, third prize was won by a miniature model of Lamu hat made up of recycled materials complete with a pump and water denoting the sea, it was an engineering and design triumph.

Loss is not losing

by admin | Nov 2, 2024 | Uncategorized