Max Pinckers presents State of Emergency – Harakati za Mau Mau kwa Haki, Usawa na Ardhi Yetu (2014-…), an ongoing documentary project in collaboration with Mau Mau war veterans and Kenyans who survived colonial atrocities. In the form of in-person reenactments, or ‘demonstrations’, together they (re)visualise the fight for independence from British colonial rule in the 1950s, manifesting their past experiences in the present with a future audience in mind. With most of the colonial archives deliberately destroyed, hidden or manipulated, this project attempts to shine a light on this history’s blind spots by creating new ‘imagined records’ that fill in the missing gaps of historical archives.
State of Emergency interweaves fragmentary colonial archives, photographs of architectural and symbolic remnants from the past, mass grave sites, demonstrations and the testimonies of people who experienced and survived the war themselves. State of Emergency is a collaborative attempt at rebuilding and reimagining possible futures of reparation and reconciliation. Together with the National Museums of Kenya and members of Mau Mau War Veterans Association, they deliver a collective response aimed at healing—without erasing—the still gaping wounds of colonial violence, creating a restorative instrument of the photographic medium that makes it possible to tell their truths to the powerful.
Organised by Dr Lucy Bradnock (The Courtauld) and Dr Bergit Arends (The Courtauld) as part of the Modern & Contemporary Series.
