Interview: Ron Reason, Documenting Hope in a Kenyan Slum

By Amy Mikel in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 13, 2008 5:15PM

When Chicago photographer and designer Ron Reason scheduled a business trip to Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, the last thing he expected was to find inspiration for an art show. During multiple trips to Nairobi, Reason became enthralled with an inner-city slum known as Kibera, and returned to Chicago determined to illuminate what he had discovered.

Despite the fact that Kibera was plagued with intense post-election violence and bloodshed in the early months of this year, Reason was amazed to find messages of peace already blossoming in the slum. Local artists had come together to form the Art for Peace Healing Project, creating community art courses for residents, while spreading messages of peace – graffiti, peace paintings – on structures of the slum, some which had seen the worst of the rioting and violence.

Reason began photographing the graffiti and other street art, as well as children of the slum, “smiling against the odds.” He also began gathering together artwork, produced by these artists and residents of Kibera, after finding out it had never been exhibited outside of Nairobi.

Hope in a Hard Place is Reason’s exhibit, telling the emerging story of a joyous, peaceful life in the Kibera slum, with 100% of the proceeds going back to its children and local artists. We spoke with Reason about his time in Kibera, his impressions of the people he met there, and his upcoming exhibit.

Chicagoist: What originally brought you to the city of Nairobi?

Ron Reason: I was contacted last summer by The Standard, a newspaper that is essentially the Sun-Times of East Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. They wanted me to work with them on redesigning the paper and training the staff, to reach new readers and advertisers.

C: But you have some experience with photojournalism as well?

RR: Yes. For 10 years I was a design and photo editor at the St. Petersburg (FL) Times, which has an amazing photo staff. Also, I was on the faculty for five years at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies as Director of Visual Journalism – in charge of photojournalism programs as well as news design, graphics, and editing.

C: How did Kenyans react when they learned you were from the United States, specifically from Chicago?

RR: I've met folks from all walks there, from isolated rural tribes to slum dwellers to urban sophisticates, and everyone is warm and receptive to the American interloper. But once I say Chicago, oh my God - almost always, it's, "Obama!" time. Kenyans are intently interested in politics, since their own always seem to be in some state of precariousness, but they also are well versed about U.S. interests as well as other African nations.

C: So what originally brought you to the area of the city where the Kibera slum is located?

RR: On a drive back to our hotel, we passed the Kibera slum in the distance. One of the editors I work with said, "That’s the second largest slum in Africa. (After Soweto.) We can take you there on your next visit if you like." I did some reading and found it more alluring than scary - and I really looked forward to my return to Kenya so I could arrange the tour.

C: Alluring? Can you explain what you mean?

RR: What I had imagined about Kibera, and what I was learning, just seemed so foreign, exotic - I had heard some unsavory tales from my clients, heard it was featured in the movie The Constant Gardener (which I hadn't seen). I also was drawn to the notion that this must be quite a leap from my relatively cushy life in Chicago. I knew there was no way it couldn't be interesting and educational, and likely good photo ops, of course.

C: So you were able to arrange a trip to Kibera …

RR: Not long into my follow-up visit to Kenya, I was introduced to a former photographer with the paper, Noor Khamis, now with Reuters, who actually lives in Kibera and took me on the most amazing daylong tour. He knew people, and nooks and crannies, that just blew me away. But most of all I was struck by the unexpected beauty of the place – explosions of bright, upbeat graffiti, a tour of a ramshackle artists' collective known as M2, really a two-story hut with a dirt floor that seemed ready to fall in on itself ... I thought, I've got to get back and hang with these guys, but the first tour was so fast paced it didn't allow it.

Later I arranged to return to the slum, hang with the artists, negotiate to bring some of their art back to the States, and first thought about showcasing it at the opening of my new studio/gallery in Pilsen.

C: Can you talk more about this M2 artists’ collective?

RR: It’s really just a group of self-taught artists that are using art as a sort of healing mechanism, as a response to all the violence which came through Kibera. They get kids involved, they get new or inexperienced artists involved. It’s a peace effort.

These are the exact guys I bought the art from that will be on display in the exhibit.

C: What were your impressions then, after visiting the slum?

RR: My first impressions just blew me away. The dozens and dozens of kids rushing up to me with the biggest smiles on their faces - asking in the same sing-song manner, "How are YOU?" They were tickled to see what must be a rare mzungu (white guy) in their midst, and to have their photo taken, and see their images in the viewfinder.

But of course there's the poverty. On my first visit, I had a $3,000 laptop in my backpack. It was strange to think how many lives would be vastly improved by the cost of this device. Same for my ipod, my Nikon, my zoom lens, my wallet. I felt saddled with Western trappings, but it was all part of the job that took me there, so what can you do. But I never really felt threatened, never felt unsafe, and met over the course of my visits, hundreds of people.

Related to the poverty is just a vast sense of “stuck-ness.” People stuck with little chance of rising out of the slum, moving out, making more money, getting more food. Kids stuck with no after-school programs, pretty much nothing in the way of arts programs [Note: we received confirmation today that the Kenyan government has just scrapped art from the school curriculum]. When a rare person confronted Noor about why we were taking photos without compensating the people, it made me conscious of being the American invader, coming, taking, leaving.

C: I was wondering if you had any of those problems. That slum residents see a white man come, snap some pictures, then go. If you were viewed as more of a tourist who had this freedom to invade their lives, then leave at will.

RR: This is a HUGE issue with the Maasai tribespeople. It's rare you can snap their photo up close without paying them something. I paid $10 to snap a photo in a marketplace. They are certain you are going to sell them to National Geographic.

In the slum however, I never felt awkward about the photo thing. A few people hid or ran away but many, many others either posed happily, or went about their daily business and let me shoot. They know it's an interesting place to outsiders, by and large they seemed unashamed – it’s just their lot in life – and they also suspect that publicity or exposure of any kind brings a chance, however slim, of improved conditions.

C: Let’s then finally talk about your exhibit. What events came together to inspire you to create what is now your photography and art exhibit, Hope in a Hard Place?

RR: On my return visit to Kibera I spent some good time with the artists from the M2 collective. I asked, had they ever done programs for kids? They had, but money had run out, so they don't really do that. My host on that visit said his six kids have no arts programs in their schools.

At the same time, other things were happening. Out of the blue, more than a few people implored this visitor – not even knowing I had any outlet for journalism or art – please tell the rest of the world that Kenya isn't such a bad place.

Literally the day before I left for Africa, I signed a lease in Pilsen in the Fountainhead Lofts building, which is a site of the Second Friday’s gallery walk, and was told I could open my doors if I had any art to show. The office was largely for my newspaper design work but I had some other vague schemes about trying new things as well, and ideas just sort of clicked. I have to put all this stuff together and tell a story. Hope and goodness and joy exists, even in small places, even in shadows, where you might not expect to even look for it, let alone find it. I sketched out what the show might look like, brainstormed titles and descriptions on napkins at dinner at the Holiday Inn Nairobi, and one night at dinner, "Hope in a Hard Place" popped into my head. I knew that was it.

C: What facets of life in Kibera does your exhibit attempt to portray?

RR: That children, at least through a certain age, maintain an admirable innocence in some pretty harsh conditions. The laughter and look in their eyes, amazing.

That artists very boldly and noticeably stepped in, after the place was racked with violence in January, to say: this doesn't have to be. End tribal interests. Stop the madness. Let's not just show our kids the worst we can be. Let's pick up a paint brush and show them something good.

C: You have said that 100% of proceeds from the exhibit will be donated back to residents of Kibera. Have you made any progress on the specifics?

RR: At the very least, I load up an empty suitcase with art supplies and open it up on a street corner there on my next visit. But hopefully, it will be more formal than that. The host for one of my follow-up visits, coincidentally, approached me for advice on setting up an after school program for kids. Asking about how to get a reading club, arts workshops, a soccer team going. Called the Nicofeli Kids Club, after his daughters Nicole and Felicia, it's in the process of being registered with the bureaucratic Kenyan government, so hopefully that will be formalized before I return there in October.

I've also made connections at a community arts center called The Godown that could probably administer the program in a trustworthy way. As with a lot of things in Africa, it may be in an ad hoc fashion at first, and may involve some leaps of faith. Needless to say, after the show ends I'll have another challenge on my hands to put things into play.

C: In your travel blog, you mention an encounter with a young man who is eager to get his hands on any sort of book, since Kibera has no library. Can you talk a bit about your plan to help bring books back when you revisit Kenya?

RR: That was an eye-opening moment. Here was a literate, well-versed man, albeit unemployed and hanging out in a drinking den on Sunday morning, chatting me up about Robert Ludlum, and tossing me the middle third of "Parcifal Mosaic" because the first and final thirds were farmed out to someone else. More than a few people told me – we have no books.

It poses another challenge: can you really make a difference by loading up a suitcase full of books and dumping them on a street corner? Honestly, I was thinking of going to the basement of The Ark (thrift store on Lincoln, south of Addison) on half-price kids book day and loading up a few bags full and carting them over with me on the next trip.

I'm hoping my contact with the Nicofeli Club may have some ideas and initiative to consider putting together a library through his church, but wow, this sounds like another big challenge. Where there's a will, there's a way, I guess. Maybe someone will read this and lend a helping hand. This seems to be how progress gets made in places like this. Bit by bit, person by person, book by book.

C: It's interesting, your job takes you all over the world – is this the first time you have felt such a strong connection to a place you have visited, and then been actually been in a position to make such a difference?

RR: I was in India last year and felt a very strong connection to the place, and I lived in Buenos Aires and felt a wonderful connection to the people and place, but both were different. Certainly each of those places has challenges, but I honestly felt spiritually drawn to Kibera -- once there, I felt I was in a unique position to tell a story in a different, artistic way, one that might contradict the notion of Kenya as a doomed enterprise.

C: Any last thoughts on your experiences in Africa? You have lived and traveled all over the world, why keeping coming back to Chicago?

RR: I adore Chicago and love the proximity to my nearby hometown (LaPorte, Ind.) Coming back here my head is in a whole new place. Good lord, how our views of a food crisis (gallon of milk goes over $3), or fuel crisis (gallon of gas, oh my God!) or banking or housing or whatever, contrasts with the same issues in places like Kibera. Or in Egypt, where even a government-subsidized one-cent (U.S.) loaf of bread is hard to come by for some people. And you go to Dubai and the place is dripping with money, and you think, how can there be such disparity? You can either turn and run the other way, or you can take one little step here and there and be the hope in a hard place. Why not?

Opening reception for Hope in a Hard Place takes place this evening, June 13, from 6-10 p.m., 1932 S Halsted, Fountainhead Lofts Building, #408

To arrange a private viewing of the exhibit, or for more information on how to donate books, art supplies, or make other contributions to help residents of Kibera, contact Ron Reason by emailing ron@ronreason.com or calling at 773.562.7464