Kenya Burning

Photographers Document the Horror of the 2007/8 Post-Election Violence

“I thought the exhibition was thought provoking, I personally felt guilty when looking at those photos and it made me want to be in a position where if I could prevent such scenes from happening in my country Kenya I would.” - Kevin  on June 27th, 2008. 5:08 pm  

“I was hanging out near the Nairobi Gallery, waiting for my baby sis when I decided to check into the gallery to kill time - tis a decision that has probably changed my perspective on a lot of things. the footage from T.V stations barely captured the graphic reality of those days as have been captured by these photojournalists!  

God forbid that this ever happen again, anywhere in the world, gonna take time off stuff and make sure I take some of my more radical friends to this exhibit and hope that this small gesture will go a long way in ensuring that history does not repeat itself.” - Gor Soudan  on May 3rd, 2009. 4:16 pm 

“It is time we woke up to the reality that it is not the leaders or politicians that will bring any meaningful change to our beloved country but “ourselves”

I don’t think we can justly say that any leader or politician picked up a panga to kill someone or burn a house, but it was the common mwananchi blaring out his hatred to his fellow country man! Why did we have to do it?  

Let us first point the finger at ourselves each one as an individual and blame ourselves before we start blaming others. Let us stop the culture of complaining and blaming …” - Martin Wario on July 27th, 2009. 6:50 pm 

 

“Kenya Burning” was a photographic exhibition of images captured by amateur and professional photographers during the post-election violence of 2007/8. The exhibition provided an opportunity for the audience to remember and reflect on the tragic post-election events of 2008 and reinforce sentiments already strongly expressed by ordinary citizens across the country that the violence should never happen again. 

The exhibition was first launched at the GoDown in April 2008. Subsequent exhibitions have been held in Nairobi, Eldoret, Mombasa, Kisumu and Zanzibar. 

 

The jarring, and at times controversial, exhibition featured images captured by:

  1. Allan Gachigi 
  2. Anne Holmes 
  3. Arno Kopecky 
  4. Boniface Mwangi 
  5. Charles Kimani 
  6. Georgina Goodwin 
  7. Thomas Mukoya 
  8. Tom Otieno and  
  9. Yasuyoshi Chiba 

The exhibition was also jointly published into a book by The GoDown and Kwani Trust.  

Kenyan photographer, political activist and CNN Africa Photojournalist of the Year award winner, Boniface Mwangi, received a congratulatory missive from then U. S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton for his work in documenting the violence. 

Yasuyoshi Chiba was awarded the World Press Photo Award in the ‘Singles’ category for his photo which captured tens of Maasai, and Kalenjin warriors engaged in a bow-and-arrow field battle during the post-election violence. Yasuyoshi Chiba is currently Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Chief Photographer for East Africa and Indian Ocean. He is still based in Nairobi.