Born in DR Congo in 1964, Xavier Verhoest studied film editing in Belgium. In 1992, he joined Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) as a volunteer and worked until 2003 in Palestine, Kenya, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda etc.

 

Xavier Verhoest is the co-founder of Art2BeOne, an organization using art and expression as a tool promoting positive living and social changes.

 

Art2BeOne

Founded in 2006 by Xavier Verhoest and Annette Schwalbe, Art2BeOne is a Nairobi-based platform of visual artists, therapists, and activists. The initiative uses expressive tools—such as painting, photography, film, and books—to explore memory, foster social change, and promote positive living.

Through creative engagement, Art2BeOne empowers people to share their life stories, challenge dominant narratives, fight for their rights, and advocate publicly for justice.

 

For the last 20 years, Xavier Verhoest has engaged in numerous creative projects on identity, memory, violence, peace, culture and heritage in Kenya, Somalia, Burundi, Mali, Italy, Belgium etc.

 

In 2003, he initiates the project ‘Who I am, Who We are’, an exploration of what it means to be Kenyan today using creative tools.

 

Between 2002 and 2012 he curated more than 100 exhibitions in Nairobi.

 

As an artist, Xavier Verhoest has created a broad range of work responding to the events, emotions, and relationships that he has encountered in war zones and in the margin of the society. Most of his works are evocative meditations on time and duration as well as the themes of personal and collective memory.

 

These are works that meditate on universal themes of mortality, fragility, and the natural world.

 

He has exhibited in Kenya, Ethiopia, Belgium, France and Germany.