Nura Qureshi
Are You Calling Me a Dog?, 2016 – 2018
“I wanted to document the remaining resigned, yet spirited, men and women of this barely recorded conflict, the Mau Mau uprising. Were they living on the land they once fought for? I recorded some of the places and paths that soon will be forgotten and overgrown, along with the trace of how they were used. I set out to capture the spirit of these buried places and in the end imagined some of the stories that took place on them.”
Nura Qureshi
The Mau Mau movement emerged in Kenya in 1952 as a reaction to the cruel oppression and inequalities caused by decades of British colonial rule. The uprisings, predominantly by Kikuyu people, led to a guerrilla conflict – arguably, a civil war – in which some 7800 resistance fighters were killed and 90,000 interned in camps set up by the British. The conflict, which lasted almost a decade, was the longest and most violent anti-colonial struggle in the former British colony of Kenya. Though finally put down by the British, Mau Mau resistance laid the foundation for Kenya’s decolonisation and finally its independence in 1963.
But almost sixty years later, the final liberation of Kenya from the former colonial powers has not occurred: many settlers have retained both their social position and their land. The traumatic traces of the violent conflict are still visible today, while the protagonists are long forgotten.
In her photo essay Are You Calling Me a Dog?, the artist Nura Qureshi searches for traces of Mau Mau resistance. With the help of historical sources such as oral stories, military records and interviews with surviving fighters, Qureshi’s photographs depict historical sites as protagonists. Working to expose the brutality and dehumanisation of colonialism, she refrains from graphic depictions of physical violence, focusing instead on Mau Mau initiation and surrender rites as well as British symbols and infrastructures of oppression.
Nura Qureshi (born in 1977 in Germany/ lives and works in Berlin, Germany), a photographer and mixed-media visual artist, studied photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. In her photographs, Qureshi explores places and practices associated with the darkest aspect of human history, such as war, colonialism and genocide. Drawing on archival work and interviews, she investigates collective memory, the historical archive and individuals’ relationships to their shared past.
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Foto: © Felix Zeiske
Nura Qureshi
7 Oranges, Nairobi 2018
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
26,6 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Mau Mau considered those who continued to work for white settlers to be traitors. Refusal to join the resistance was punishable by death.
Nura Qureshi
Between Banana Leaves, 2018
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
60,0 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
The Mau Mau used torches in banana trees to signal their presence.
Nura Qureshi
Court Housing, Nyeri 2016
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
40,0 x 50,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Mau Mau fighters that surrendered would face a tribunal of judges, some of whom were housed in this now abandoned building in Nyeri, adjacent to the court house where Dedan Kimathi, a key leader of the resistance, was eventually sentenced to death.
Nura Qureshi
Villagization, 2016
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
26,6 x 32,2 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Villagization was the British program of forced resettlement to cut off Mau Mau’s supply lines. Residents of Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang’a and Embu Districts were forced to move into “protected villages” behind barbed-wire fences and watch towers.
Nura Qureshi
Confessed, 2017
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
26,6 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Detained Mau Mau were marked with symbols in their files:
X: Confessed & Cooperative
Z: Hardcore
Nura Qureshi
Confessed II, 2017
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
26,6 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Detained Mau Mau were marked with symbols in their files:
X: Confessed & Cooperative
Z: Hardcore
Nura Qureshi
The Oath Administrator, 2018
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
60,0 x 80,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Oath administrators were responsible for introducing the movement and reading vows to be repeated by those who pledged allegiance to the resistance.
Nura Qureshi
Surrender, 2017
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
60,0 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Mau Mau fighters who chose to surrender identified themselves by carrying green branches in front of their faces.
Nura Qureshi
Muddy Pit, 2018
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
60,0 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
According to survivor testimonies, one way the British military tortured Mau Mau suspects and prisoners was by forcing them to dig their own ditches, fill them with water, and lie in them for long periods of time.
Nura Qureshi
Kipande, 2016
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
26,6 x 26,6 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
The kipande identification document indicated personal details, the employment history, the tribe to which a person belonged and had to be worn with a metal container & chain around the neck at all times.
Nura Qureshi
Moving Gallows, 2017
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
33,6 x 40,0 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
During the Emergency, the British Military introduced the more ‘efficient’ Moving Gallows to hang Mau Mau suspects. A copy of a photograph is all that remains of these gallows.
Nura Qureshi
Editions Mau-Mau, Nyeri 2016
From the series Are You Calling Me a Dog?
40,0 x 26,6 cm | Digital print on sandwich panel
Remnants of the Mau Mau are often hard to find. Many artifacts and records have been destroyed, or are hidden, like this vinyl in a house in Nyeri.
