Filippo Romano. Nairobi and the River of People Walking
25.2.2021, 9:00 PM
Lab27 is pleased to announce the fifth edition of INCONTRI DI FOTOGRAFIA, which will take place on February 25 at 9:00 PM, live online on the Lab27 YouTube channel.
With photographer and lecturer Filippo Romano, we travel to Kenya, to Nairobi and the Mathare slum. Starting from one of Africa’s largest shantytowns, we explore the theme of survival in the urban periphery and reflect on what it means to photograph it.
“Nairobi” is a project that began in 2011 after Filippo Romano’s first trip with the NGO Live in Slums, an organization that carries out architectural projects in the Mathare slum. After documenting the construction of a school, Romano gradually extended his photographic investigation to the entire ghetto, seeking to capture its dynamics, aspirations, perspectives, and struggles. “Nairobi” is a collection of stories, each offering a viewpoint, a key to understanding how the underbelly of African cities is an essential lifeline for the well-being of the so-called formal city.
“To understand how ghettos belong to African cities, it is enough to observe a street corner near downtown Nairobi from six in the morning onward to see a river of people, coming from Mathare and Kibera, heading to work, often on foot to save on transport. That river of walking people is everywhere in Africa and is emblematic of its urban development in general.”
From the waste landscape of Dandora, to street vendors, metal constructions, crowded shuttles, large water tanks, young people preparing to party in downtown clubs, the houses, the colors, the people—“Nairobi” is a buzzing mosaic of lives forming a puzzle of existence, flowing along the edge of tacit illegality, tracing paths of hope and abandonment, in search of identity, and above all, dignity. Only by suspending judgment can one perceive the extraordinary complexity and vitality of these interwoven lives.
The fate of Africa, whose resources and labor were historically the focus of European powers, comes into sharp focus today, as the consequences of those imperialist policies cast their shadows on the shores of the old continent. Understanding these settlement phenomena better—even through photography—would be a first step toward sharpening both vision and mind.
Filippo Romano. Nairobi and the River of People Walking
25.2.2021, 9:00 PM
Lab27 is pleased to announce the fifth edition of INCONTRI DI FOTOGRAFIA, which will take place on February 25 at 9:00 PM, live online on the Lab27 YouTube channel.
With photographer and lecturer Filippo Romano, we travel to Kenya, to Nairobi and the Mathare slum. Starting from one of Africa’s largest shantytowns, we explore the theme of survival in the urban periphery and reflect on what it means to photograph it.
“Nairobi” is a project that began in 2011 after Filippo Romano’s first trip with the NGO Live in Slums, an organization that carries out architectural projects in the Mathare slum. After documenting the construction of a school, Romano gradually extended his photographic investigation to the entire ghetto, seeking to capture its dynamics, aspirations, perspectives, and struggles. “Nairobi” is a collection of stories, each offering a viewpoint, a key to understanding how the underbelly of African cities is an essential lifeline for the well-being of the so-called formal city.
“To understand how ghettos belong to African cities, it is enough to observe a street corner near downtown Nairobi from six in the morning onward to see a river of people, coming from Mathare and Kibera, heading to work, often on foot to save on transport. That river of walking people is everywhere in Africa and is emblematic of its urban development in general.”
From the waste landscape of Dandora, to street vendors, metal constructions, crowded shuttles, large water tanks, young people preparing to party in downtown clubs, the houses, the colors, the people—“Nairobi” is a buzzing mosaic of lives forming a puzzle of existence, flowing along the edge of tacit illegality, tracing paths of hope and abandonment, in search of identity, and above all, dignity. Only by suspending judgment can one perceive the extraordinary complexity and vitality of these interwoven lives.
The fate of Africa, whose resources and labor were historically the focus of European powers, comes into sharp focus today, as the consequences of those imperialist policies cast their shadows on the shores of the old continent. Understanding these settlement phenomena better—even through photography—would be a first step toward sharpening both vision and mind.
