"The snake's open jaws reached from the ground to the top of that tree. The whole village walked inside. Then the snake closed its mouth." Yom, Sudan
The Refugee City exhibition uses grotesque and poetic landscape-images and portraits to tell about the lives of the people in Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp and those of the local indigenous people, the Turkana herders. The refugee-camp residents share their living environment with the herders, making clashes inevitable. In the exhibition we can hear the herders' singing, read about the refugees' experiences, and see into the world of the refugee camp with the aid of projected images and photographs.
In the neighbourhood of Kakuma Kekäläinen encountered not only the harshest world she has ever known, but also the most beautiful and the saddest landscape she has ever seen: "The perpetually shining sun paints the sky a bright blue, the fleecy clouds lick the sharply outlined tops of the hills, the savannah grasslands have been burned silver, the local clay glows ochre. Shrivelled arms of rivers wound around the roots of the hedgerows".
Kekäläinen's documentary book "Leiri - tarinoita ihmisistä jotka haluavat kotiin" ("The Camp - Tales of People Who Want To Go Home", WSOY 2010 ) is published this autumn.
The Finnish Museum of Photography
Process Space, 1st floor
The Cable Factory, Kaapeliaukio 3, Helsinki
