The prominent themes I tend to explore in my photographs are space, people, and memories—considering how these things intertwine and impact me. My journey is one in which I discover the intimacy of places, the nostalgia of cities, and the streets remembered throughout heartbreak. I found that I seem to have a near obsession with trees, the tropics, and horses. It is through these fragments that I construct a story of myself.
My work now consists of collecting memory, of the places I encounter, documenting the familiar, the everyday, and the mundane. The encounters are always different, almost like new lovers. I bookmark geographical locations with landmarks of affect: I was here when my friend passed away, this is where I have a home: a family. This is the place I longed to be and couldn’t stay. The photographs are not about one country, one city or one place, but are an emotional cartography of where I have been. It is a series of vignettes on travel, loss, memory and the impossibility of getting there when you need to the most. The photographs record different places—they are a reflection of my life. Nairobi is where I grew up and I return to each time, primarily for my family.
Mimi Cherono Ng’ok was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1983. She studied Photography at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 2006. She is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her experiences growing up between Kenya and South Africa have engendered an intimate body of work centred on issues of home, displacement, loss and identity. She has presented solo exhibitions in Denmark, Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. Recent group exhibitions include: Dakar Biennale international exhibition (2016 and 2014); Rencontres de Bamako (2015); Tiwani Contemporary, London (2015); Fondation Donwahi, Abidjan (2015); National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi (2013) and Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2011). She has undertaken residencies in Côte d’Ivoire, Denmark, Brazil, Ghana and Germany and won 1st place in the PhotoAfrica Award in Tarifa, Spain in 2010. Currently she is a Magnum Foundation grantee and a recipient of the 2017 Photo London Art Proof Award.
