iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 22/05/2026

Vibrant mid mornings, indeterminate late afternoons, glowing evening sunsets...The skies have been a divine canvas this week, and The Painter has really been showing off.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 19/05/2026

Which is what we saw Emmanuel Macron - or Manu, as we've now decided we'll call him - and his ilk doing quite a lot of lately. In case you missed it, it's all in one of my most recent articles on my Substack, "The Pan-Africanism of it all." marcusolang.substack.com/p/macron-pan...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 19/05/2026

I may have, accidentally-on-purpose, stitched together a new term that may be worth exploring as we continue along these unprecedented-yet-somewhat-very-precedented times: "Victorious retroclaiming." marcusolang.substack.com/p/macron-pan...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 04/05/2026

Why did I have this as a note / header to follow up on in August of 2018?

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 21/04/2026

Or, as succinctly put by Ian Arunga: It was a proof of concept. For the full article: marcusolang.substack.com.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 21/04/2026

Conversations around Kenya's creative practices are too often about "potential", "training", "capacity building", and all those fancy PowerPoint-to-Podium arguments. The Showman Residency presented evidence for a different argument entirely.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 21/04/2026

While poring over some of the interviews that the team gave, there was this small yet monumental detail: Nyashinski's team turned sponsors away for not meeting the production’s standard. Me, personally, I love it.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/04/2026

We give a person 6 days of bereavement leave, or meet them one year later and ask if things are better - all in good faith, of course - but are we expecting them to one day simply suddenly step out in praise and thanksgiving and announce to the world that the grief is complete?

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/04/2026

I've been working on this one for a while. We're all grieving. All the time. We're just not calling it that. marcusolang.substack.com/p/adulthood-...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 02/04/2026

Then I went down a rabbit-hole, and arrived at a not-too-revolutionary-yet-still-oft-overlooked idea: That at some point, we need to stop asking what the platform prefers, and go back to asking what the work is for.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 02/04/2026

Once upon a LinkedIn post, I made a comment - in jest - around how someone mentioned that I need to learn to speak "the language of the platform".

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

In focus: Johnstone Oltetia, CEO & MD - Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC). Location: KMRC Headquarters, Nairobi (Kenya). Photography: Marcus Olang' / Stills by Marcus. Select stills from an Executive Portraiture session commissioned by KMRC.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

"Go to your branch, ask them about the KMRC facility. Then you'll share with me about what they tell you." I should get back to him so that we have another cup of tea.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

"Do you live in your own home?" He asked me this earlier, in his own tone of reassuring curiosity, as we had tea before fully getting into the shoot. I chuckle. "No, I rent. Loans and mortgages are way too expensive." His passion was sparked. This is what kicked off our whole conversation.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

"And making it easier means someone has to give people the runway they need to make their repayments, and that they can still repay at more affordable rates. So that's what we're here to do. This is our work, and my assignment is to find ways to bridge that gap."

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

"We have to make it easier for people to buy or build," says Johnstone. He's folding his sleeves, as though preparing to get into his day. Which, to be fair, he was. He had decided that our session would serve as the start to his day.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

"Even when you watch TV, you'll see that most programmes on real estate are targeted at the upper market." We were talking about his work as we went about this portraiture session. "There's very little about middle- or low-income families. It's the same with loans, especially home loans."

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

Having a conversation with Johnstone Oltetia gives you the distinct impression of a person whose every waking moment revolves around solving one very specific puzzle - and no intention of letting it go.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

"Go to your branch, ask them about the KMRC facility. Then you'll share with me about what they tell you." I should get back to him so that we have another cup of tea.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/02/2026

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 31/12/2025

Last day of 2025. With a photoshoot to wrap it up. And a quiet, firm, just-in-time affirmation with it. May the new calendar be kind to all that live in kindness.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 04/12/2025

Hi. Hello. Shikamoo. Have you taken a moment to yourself this week? How about today - have you had a moment to breathe today? How about now? Take it. Take a moment. Just... be. Here's a picture of flowers. Flowers are always nice.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 18/10/2025

The nature of writing: Draft after draft after draft. Some drafts feel like gold when you finish them. Then you take a short walk, cast your eye upon them one more time, and what you thought was gold turns into a turd. Then that turd becomes fertiliser for a fresh draft. Next one feels better.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 17/10/2025

Off my latest, “On Raila Odinga: This will be… complex.” open.substack.com/pub/marcusol... "He contained multitudes. And we, as a nation, projected our own multitudes onto him. Our hopes, fears, resentments, dreams... a screen onto which we projected the complex, fractured nature of our identity."

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 16/10/2025

My new piece, “On Raila Odinga: This will be… complex.” Yet it still didn't leave me enough room to delve into the complexities as much as I had in mind. In a Part 2, perhaps. Still, given life's nuances, I make what I believe is a fair attempt at balance. marcusolang.substack.com/p/on-raila-o...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 11/09/2025

Been nagging me what it is about the iPhone 17 Pro that feels so familiar yet so out of place. It just hit me: It reminds me of a suitcase.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 10/09/2025

I watched the latest Apple Event. I had... thoughts. marcusolang.substack.com/p/church-of-...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 08/09/2025

I fell asleep editing this, phone in hand. Happy blood moon. May your beloveds find joy at the sound of your voice, and may your enemies shudder at the mention of your name.

Blood moon, night of Sunday 7th September 2025. (Nairobi, Kenya.)

Photographed by Marcus Olang' (stillsbymarcus.com)

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 22/07/2025

If you know the proprietors of this place along Kiambu Road, please tell them to fix that sign. Those two missing letters are very important for clarity and context. Thanks for your attention to this matter.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 11/07/2025

"For the longest (deliberate Kenyanese is deliberate), I used language as outfits: English suit for the office, nice Swahili kanzu for my time in Diani, comfortable jeans & t-shirt of Sheng or Dholuo with family/friends, soupçon of French when feeling fancy…" marcusolang.substack.com/p/it-started...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 09/07/2025

"And right there is the punchline to this long, historical joke... The machine, in its quest to sound authoritative, ended up sounding like a KCPE graduate who scored an 'A' in English Composition. It replicated the linguistic ghost of the British Empire." marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 08/07/2025

"When you see our work, what are you really seeing? Are you seeing a robot's soulless prose? Or are you seeing the image of our Standard 8 English teacher, Mrs. Amollo, her voice reminding us to connect our paragraphs with a suitable linking phrase?" open.substack.com/pub/marcusol...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 03/07/2025

Nairobi, Kenya | July 2nd, 2025.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 18/06/2025

Calvins Omondi Onditi. Found dead in his cell Sunday morning. - arrested around midnight. - taken to Kipasi Police Post 3 hours after his arrest. - officers tell family he was transferred to Mbita. - family start going to Mbita, then called back to Kipasi. - "suicide". nation.africa/kenya/counti...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 03/06/2025

What happens when you take some fresh sloppy cow dung, spray air freshener on it, and put it back on the ground? That’s right: It’s still cow dung.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 03/06/2025

Earlier: The beauty goes beyond sun and sunshine.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 28/04/2025

...another redistributing the now-filled bottles, amidst clouds of teargas. This day, something fundamental shifted. This day, a shared understanding was made clear. Unspoken, yet undeniable.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 28/04/2025

I saw, in this moment, someone emerging through a plume of teargas - a Moses figure parting a sea of poison gas - with jerrycans of water, handing them over, as an entire distribution line organically formed: One person collecting empty plastic bottles, another filling them up...

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 28/04/2025

One of the things that stayed with me about this day was the genuine humanity amongst Kenyans. I saw street vendors, of their own volition, offering up bottle of drinking water.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 27/04/2025

I've been under a self-imposed expectation - an elective delusion - that whenever I share a picture, it must be accompanied by an elaborate essay with the backstory, or the thoughts it inspired. No more. Images shall henceforth be presented as the moment wills it. Starting now. #SliceOfLife

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 02/12/2024

And yet oftentimes it’s the constraints that bring out the magic - only if we’re open enough to recognising the moments we’re in. This? This was a beautiful moment. And the tool in hand was just right the right one for the job - as it always it.

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Marcus Olang' @marcusolang.substack.com · 02/12/2024

“Use what you have.” It’s a mantra I turn to whenever that voice in my head starts those whispers. You know, the ones that try telling you how unprepared or ill-equiped you are. And yet.

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