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    kamwende: Portrait of a Kikuyu Lady from the “Room Uzee na Busara - The Sages, Old Age and the Eternal” In early 2010, I attended the PIGAPICHA exhibition in Nairobi which celebrated “A Century of Portrait Photography in Nairobi.” This photo is from the Sages room and part of the room’s description reads “As Kenya forged its identity as a nation, its men and women sought new definitions of themselves. Commercial photo studios became the much desired spaces for expressions of “Self”.” One thing about the exhibition was the notable loss of information regarding the individuals in the photos as well as the photographers. At best, we only know the studio where some were taken. Exhibition description: “To be photographed was a part of day-to-day life in Nairobi, whether it was in a photo studio or by the outdoor photographers. At first a privilege of the upper class, in later years everybody has had a portrait of themselves made: families, couples, lovers, ma mboch na watu wa mtaa.  The object of urban portrait photography is the creation of an ideal image of oneself. The photos portray the subjects the way they themselves would like to be seen; they tell stories, communicate social embedment and status, metamorphose everyday life with humour and wit, try out different identities – including even fictive personalities. Photo studios like Studio One, Ramogi and Maridadi or the street photographers in Uhuru Park and in front of architectural monuments in Nairobi offer their customers a stage for this self-presentation. In so doing, the photographers develop their own photo language: they work with photo montages, hand colouration, perspective tricks, mounted stage scenes or painted backgrounds, which may relocate the subject to a beach hotel at the Indian Ocean, to the Kenyan highlands or to the Swiss Alps. And because the photo studio is a “self-presentation-machine ”, the photos reflect changes in Kenyan society across the decades of the last 100 years. In cooperation with DEVA/Africa Archive of the University of Bayreuth and the National Museums of Kenya ” <333

    kamwende:

    Portrait of a Kikuyu Lady from the “Room Uzee na Busara - The Sages, Old Age and the Eternal”

    In early 2010, I attended the PIGAPICHA exhibition in Nairobi which celebrated “A Century of Portrait Photography in Nairobi.” This photo is from the Sages room and part of the room’s description reads “As Kenya forged its identity as a nation, its men and women sought new definitions of themselves. Commercial photo studios became the much desired spaces for expressions of “Self”.” One thing about the exhibition was the notable loss of information regarding the individuals in the photos as well as the photographers. At best, we only know the studio where some were taken.

    Exhibition description:

    “To be photographed was a part of day-to-day life in Nairobi, whether it was in a photo studio or by the outdoor photographers. At first a privilege of the upper class, in later years everybody has had a portrait of themselves made: families, couples, lovers, ma mboch na watu wa mtaa. 

    The object of urban portrait photography is the creation of an ideal image of oneself. The photos portray the subjects the way they themselves would like to be seen; they tell stories, communicate social embedment and status, metamorphose everyday life with humour and wit, try out different identities – including even fictive personalities. Photo studios like Studio One, Ramogi and Maridadi or the street photographers in Uhuru Park and in front of architectural monuments in Nairobi offer their customers a stage for this self-presentation. In so doing, the photographers develop their own photo language: they work with photo montages, hand colouration, perspective tricks, mounted stage scenes or painted backgrounds, which may relocate the subject to a beach hotel at the Indian Ocean, to the Kenyan highlands or to the Swiss Alps. And because the photo studio is a “self-presentation-machine ”, the photos reflect changes in Kenyan society across the decades of the last 100 years.

    In cooperation with DEVA/Africa Archive of the University of Bayreuth and the National Museums of Kenya ”

    <333

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    Posted on Thursday, 20 October
    Tagged as: Kenya Kikuyu art photography piercings travel culture beauty East Africa portrait
    Reblogged from: kamwende
    Posted by: kamwende
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      Portrait of a Kikuyu Lady from Kenya
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