A Photographic Love Poem for Nairobi
Since returning from living in the US for a decade, photographer Sarah Waiswa is building a following on Instagram by presenting an insider’s view of Nairobi’s daily life with the wide-eyed fascination of an outsider.
“It’s like I’m exploring home for the first time,” Waiswa says. “Nairobi is one of those places where you can go to the game park the national park, see giraffes walking and then see the skyline of Nairobi in the background … If I wasn’t a photographer I probably wouldn’t be as mesmerized.”
Nairobi represents many things to many people. Whether you know it as the heart of the emerging Silicon Savannah, or by the more derogatory “Nairobbery,” Kenya’s capital city is a place where the numerous facets of East African economics, politics, and culture collide in dramatic fashion.
Perhaps owing to its fast-changing character and reputation, the city is largely misunderstood — even as arts music and business are flourishing, visits are often tempered by warnings about street crime and fraud. Recent post-election violence and attacks by Al-Shabaab in or near Nairobi haven’t helped. But as with the rest of the world, everyday life for people in the city looks wholly different from the headlines that most outsiders see.
As Africa’s middle class has grown, the city of more than 3 million people has benefitted, reinforcing its place as a major metropolitan and cultural center. But as with all economic growth, there’s a clear divide between top and bottom — the vast majority of Kenyans (and Africans in general) remain below the poverty line. Hunger and homelessness remain bitter realities of daily life for many, even as ultra expensive and ostentatious clubs thrive along the city’s bustling streets.
These notions of affluence and its opposite creep in at the edges of Waiswa’s images. Her portraits of the homeless or the city’s more stylish and prosperous residents are set against the dynamic cityscape they all share. But her focus is also the immediate character and novelty of the various faces and places she points her lens at. The gleaming, widening city skyline is shared with jacaranda trees and dirt roads, the sidewalks populated by the homeless, artists and professionals of all stripes, and of course the well-to-do sporting the height of haute couture.
The DNA of Waiswa’s visual dispatches can be seen in the intensely individual personalities that run throughout. Her subjects present themselves with a degree of poise and style that’s typically reserved for glossy-paged magazines. Set against the gritty and sometimes grim realities of street life, these outward expressions of inner character would stand out in any city. For Waiswa, they’re totally irresistible.
“Africa is very conservative still — there is a certain way that people are supposed to be or look, and so when I see someone that is not afraid to express themselves I very naturally gravitate to that person,” Waiswa says. “I photographed this guy one time, and we had had a long conversation, and he said, ‘You know, the only reason I let you take a picture of me is because of how you spoke to me.’ And that kind of moved me, because it made me think about how you treat people will get you a long way, and how you talk to people.”
It all adds up to a kaleidoscopic tour of the myriad facets of Nairobi, as seen from the perspective of one who likes to challenge outside preconceptions about what life in the city looks and feels like. Preconceptions about this part of the world are many, and often uninformed. And, as per usual, the reality is often far more complex and way more interesting.
“I think people will magnify one thing that’s happening in one country or somewhere and all of a sudden that represents ‘Africa,’” Waiswa says. “Like anywhere in the world, there are things about Nairobi that are progressing so quickly, but there are things also that happen and you’re like, ‘Oh my god we’re taking ten steps forward and then ten steps backward.’ So I try to capture those things in my photos somehow.”
Collectively, these images are an ode to Nairobi that form something like an ongoing book of visual poems. Waiswa in fact likes to use the term ‘phoetry’ to describe what she’s after in her Instagrammery. Although she does include captions — a phrase uttered by her subject or a thought that has come to her mind after reflecting on the image she’s taken —ultimately it’s the collective impression of a cresting, vibrant, dynamic city and its denizens that she captures.
“I like people to look at my portraits and come up with a story, just look at the portrait and think about who is this person? And what are they doing?,” she says. “I want to say as much as possible without using words.”
