Mau Mau – Stories Untold – Photo series

Who is working on what here?

My name is Mavingo Dennis, I am a professional photographer. Together with my colleague Birte Mensing, who is a journalist, I am working on a photography project on the Mau Mau freedom fighters. The Mau Mau fought for Kenya‘s indepence from the British in the 1950s are were brutally fought back. We want to remind people, that without the Mau Mau, life in Kenya today would probably look different. We want to diversify the stories, that are told about the Mau Mau – neither were they saints, nor were they evil. We want to tell the human stories of the Kenyan independence struggle.

What are we going to do?

For the project, we are going back to the area where I come from, the foothills of Mount Kenya. We already did a sample shoot with a local dance group which is trying to keep the Mau Mau spirit and heritage alive. They will be our models. Now, we want to recreate historic uniforms & weapons, bring better equipment so that we can work on the actual photoshoot with the group on the ground.

We will then interview old relatives of the group members, who witnessed the independence struggle. Those interviews will be a basis for the stories that will accompany the photos on social media, in a later exhibition and other publications.

What do we need the money for?

Our funding aim of 2,000 USD is to cover the costs to realize the actual photo shoot and the interviews in the Mount Kenya region. (And cover the tranaction costs and the cost of the rewards.)

We would spend the money on: young designer recreating historic uniforms, young artist recreating the improvised weapons, light and camera equipment as well as car hire, compensation for the models and little rewards for the old people, who will tell us what they remember about the Mau Mau times.

If more money comes in, we would like to extend the project in the following ways:

We would like to print the photos and the stories for an exhibition, that can travel to schools.

We would like to print booklets with the photos and the stories that can be distributed to interested people.

We want to produce a short documentary on the project - with the interviews and behind the scenes from the photo shoot.