A Photography and Sculpture Exhibit by Kenyan Photographer and Mixed Media artist Tahir Carl Karmali
Kenyan-born photographer and mixed media artist Tahir Carl Karmali is the creator of “Jua Kali” – a series featuring surreal portraits of Kenyans, currently in exhibition at United Photo Industries in DUMBO, Brooklyn.
Jua Kali – Swahili for “Fierce Sun” – according to Karmali, is a term that was originally coined to refer to the informal laborers that worked under the hot sun, and has since changed to mean people that work in any informal way and used to describe work that is substandard.
Attempting to change societies perception of the Jua Kali sector, and inspired by the creativity of the informal sector that breathes character into Nairobi’s economy, the stunning photomontage series is appropriately a nod to ‘Jua Kali’ workers – “craftsmen regarded as true recycling artists who, with an enormous spirit of invention and feeling for material, are able to create everyday commodities and works of art from almost any found object”.
Using what seem like Nairobi city as a backdrop, the spotlight of the series are the subjects transubstantiated – composed with rich colors and adorned with objects, circuits boards, and wires, while the mix of human and machine results in a dramatic depiction of the subjects as somewhat superhuman. What’s more, in Karmali’s words “each portrait describes a personality that has created a surreal self-image to fit in Nairobi’s Jua Kali world.”
Karmali’s work can be viewed as an imaginative visual narrative reflected on the heroic human corporeal body – exploring and engaging with the potential and possibilities while “honoring the Jua Kali style”.
Jua Kali is on view at United Photo Industries until March 26, 2016.
