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Volume 5 gives an overview of a scene of photographers in Kenya who use the medium both for visual art practice and sociopolitical documentary photography. Historically, art in Kenya has been dominated by the media of painting and sculpture. Photography has been oriented mainly towards photojournalism, fashion, advertising and the ubiquitous publicity of NGO/Aid/Development organizations, which has had a considerable influence on the politics of images and visual discourse in Kenya. Exhibitions and projects have tended to be mainly message-driven. Nevertheless, apart from this dominant trope, photographers have still carried forward their own agendas, designs and projects, albeit on a rather underground, informal, and less visible level. This book represents an attempt to collect some of those works by photographers who are currently working alongside the dominant Kenyan photography discourse. It is a collection of what is going on in the independent photography scene in Nairobi at the end of the first decade of the new millennium.
Although the works exhibited are as heterogeneous in form and content as the artists are, a certain family resemblance was intended. What all these projects have in common is a strong nexus of content with a consciousness of formal aspects and a reflection on the gaze and the medium of photography. Hence the title Mwangalio Tofauti, meaning in Kiswahili “a different way of looking.”
The essay by the literary and cultural critic Keguro Macharia introduces the works and unfolds their layers of meanings, but also the possible interactions, associations, and interferences between them as they converse in the space of the exhibition and the book. A second volume covering the work of other photographers from Kenya will be published in 2014.
This book is published in conjunction with the National Museums of Kenya. It is based on an exhibition at the Nairobi Gallery, which was curated by the Goethe-Institut Kenya in 2010. The texts are in English.
Jacob Barua, Jim Chuchu, Sam Hopkins, Antony Kaminju, Miriam Syowia Kyambi, Barbara Minishi (with Cyrus Kabiru), James Muriuki, Boniface Mwangi, Wambui Mwangi
With an essay by Keguro Macharia
