WHEN PHOTOGRAPHY MEETS POETRY

By Wambui Mwangi and Keguro Macharia

Friday, June 11, 2010

Koroga:

To stir up

To stir into

To stir around

To be stirring

An invitation and a provocation.

Riddle: what happens when hungry eyes meet starving words?

Answer: Another African Story

Koroga is another African story, a story of what we see and how we see, of meetings and transformations, of looking and seeing, of seeing and writing, of speaking into being the worlds we know, and those we are always imagining. Koroga is photographs inflaming poetry, poetry inciting photographs. Koroga is what happens when we see the world on our own terms, in our own languages, in their accents and dances, their hidden smiles and come hither seducations, seducations because we teach the world our pleasures.

Koroga is photographers and poets. Wambui, Andrew, Sitawa, Stephen, Nyambura, Ngwatilo, Keguro, and a quest to have poems speak to photos, photos speak to poems, a long conversation from now until September 2010.

Koroga is what happens when we look at photos of ourselves, read poems about us, get stirred up, and decide to stir around.

Welcome to our seducations.

 A peek? A glimpse? A preview? Sure.

The assignment: how do we see our interjections: Ati, Haiya, Aterere, Asi . . .