Nairobi (Un)Covered in Evolving & Ambitious Photography Project

Kenya Sun 03-04-2011

Nairobi (Un)Covered in Evolving & Ambitious Photography Project
Press Release

Stories of the lives lived in Kenya’s fast-changing capital are to be told in an innovative new photojournalism project producing an exhibition in US universities which grows day by day.

For DAILY DISPATCHES: Nairobi, photographer Brendan Bannon and writer Mike Pflanz, both long-time Nairobi residents, will spend each day of April reporting from different corners of the city.

Daily Dispatches, Kibera, Photo by Brendan Bannon

^{Kibera, Photo by Brendan Bannon}

A day spent exploring the economy of a slum dumpsite might be followed by one profiling the city’s leading luxury car dealer. The next day could feature the revival of horseracing and the one after be about Nairobi’s booming immigrant population. Architecture, transport, learning and religion are among themes to be explored.

Daily Dispatches is unique because photographs and stories will be emailed each day to US universities, which will then print and mount them the next morning in public exhibition spaces which slowly fill with Nairobi’s stories, inviting students to engage in the daily life of the city.

Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society in London, said: “This is a fascinating experiment which should help the world understand in breadth and depth the daily concerns of urban Africans.”

Alongside the exhibition, an interactive website will feature each day’s Dispatch. A blog will allow readers to suggest new stories, engage with Bannon and Pflanz, and create connections with the US students and professors in real time.

Ed Kashi, a VII Photo Agency photographer best-known for his Black Gold project on Nigeria’s oil-producing Delta, called Daily Dispatches “an ingenious idea”.

He said: “By creating an exhibition and a website which is for the people and place where the reporting takes place, and including a feedback loop, this is a model for the future of journalism.

Daily Dispatches, Ngong racecourse, Photo by Brendan Bannon

^{A jockey prepares a training run with one of the horses entered to The Kenya Derby, the biggest event of the racing calendar, on April 3 | Photo by Brendan Bannon}

“These guys came up with an innovate approach and developed it with a clarity of purpose and completeness of vision.”

Part of Bannon and Pflanz’s motivation was a growing frustration that a true picture of the energy, innovation, ingenuity and creativity of people living in crowded, ill-planned African cities was being lost in increasingly simplistic presentations in mainstream international media.

“Each day of the seven years I have lived in Nairobi, something surprises me, someone’s story teaches me something new about how people struggle, survive, flourish and often ultimately triumph here,”said Pflanz, the Nairobi-based correspondent for The Daily Telegraph of London.

“But at the same time it has become more and more difficult to find space for stories which don’t dwell only on the negatives of modern urban African lives.”

Bannon, originally from Buffalo, New York, says Daily Dispatches will not present Nairobi through a rose-tinted lens filter, but will aim to show a balanced portrait.

“Don't get us wrong, I believe in the need to tell stories about people caught in cycles of violence or laid low by disease, people whose dreams are impeded by poverty,” he said.

“These are important and essential subjects and photography has done much to draw attention to inequity, and in some cases it has led to efforts to attempt remedy.

“But what we are saying is that the range of stories is often too narrow. You wouldn't describe a feast by talking only about the salt, would you?Room has to be made to show the rest of the story.”

The month-long project runs daily from April 1 to April 30, 2011.

A documentary film and book are planned for after its completion, and it is hoped that the exhibition will travel to Nairobi later in the year.

For more information contact:

Brendan Bannon +254 (0) 703 704 024, brendan@dailydispatches.org
Mike Pflanz+254 (0) 735 446 226, mike@dailydispatches.org

Posted By: Maggie Otieno

skip to top

Related Links

Daily Dispatches

Your Comments

skip to top

African Artists Portfolios

Sithabile Mlotshwa is a Mixed Media Artist

Geraldine Robarts is a Mixed Media Artist

Click To View All African Artist Portfolios

Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery

Shades of Time: An exhibition by Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery National Museum of Kenya

News By Regions

Featured Artist Portfolio

Title: Making Ways
Name: Tabitha Wa Thuku
Country: Kenya
Medium: Mixed media on heavy canvas
Size: 149 X 140 cms
Click here to view