In Kenya’s Nubians: Then and Now, American award-winning photographer Greg Constantine traces the origin of the Nubians to the late 1880s when Sudanese soldiers were incorporated into the British Army and brought to Kenya.

The Nubians and their families remained in Kenya and in 1912, the British government designated some 4,197 acres of land for the Nubians to settle on. In 1917, the British gazetted it as land for the Sudanese askaris and their dependants.

The Nubians named the land — located outside of what would become the city of Nairobi — Kibera, or “land of forest.”

They played their part in the defence of Kenya and East Africa for they served in the King’s African Rifles during World War I against the Germans, and in World War II in places like Somalia, Abyssinia, Madagascar and Burma.

A recent photographic exhibition in Bukoto in Kampala pays homage to the history and struggles of the Nubian community, which has lived in Kibera for the past 100 years.

The exhibition, titled “Kenya’s Nubians: Then and Now,” was organised by Constantine and the Al Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment and Human Development (KACE).

The black and white pictures — shown from June 2-9 — depict the everyday life of the Nubians in Kibera, one of Africa’s biggest slum.

Mish Mash Art Gallery in Kololo, Kampala, also held a satellite exhibition of selected photographs during the week.

The pictures show traditional Nubian weeding ceremonies, women in their traditional dress called “gurbaba,” family gatherings and photos, garbage collection, kiosks, burial ceremonies and sports events.

Constantine worked with the Nubian community in Kibera to collect rare, historical photographs of the community dating as far back as 1912. 

A selection of the photographs was reprinted and combined with Constantine’s own work in an exhibition that not only chronicles the history of the Nubian community in Nairobi, but also documents the consequences statelessness and the denial of citizenship have had on them in their struggle to gain recognition.

“Before Kenya’s Independence, many Nubians carried British colonial passports and had birth certificates that stated their nationality as British. After Independence, they have been one of Kenya’s most invisible and underrepresented communities economically, politically and socially,” Constantine observes.

“Their claim to land in Kibera has been contested by successive governments; the Nubians have been unable to fully participate in Kenyan society. In addition to their struggle to secure land rights, obtaining important documents needed for everyday life like national ID cards and passports has been a challenge,” Constantine notes.

This exhibition, Constantine said, aimed to inform people about the Nubian community’s history in Kibera and its contribution to the development of Kenya. It aimed to help promote the dynamic and rich heritage of a community few are aware of.  

The project was exhibited at the Go Down Arts Centre in Nairobi and Kibira Academy in Kibera in 2010. It also exhibited at the host gallery in London and the Open Society Institute in New York.

Besides the exhibition, KACE held a series of events on Nubians in Uganda and cross-border communities in East Africa.

It held a discussion on the general nationhood in Africa and particularly Nubians in Kenya and other communities in East Africa struggling for their citizenship rights, including South Sudanese in Sudan.

A short film — Josphina — about a South Sudanese woman raised in northern Sudan who is stripped of her Sudanese nationality after South Sudan’s 2011 Independence was shown.

KACE is a non-governmental and non-profit organisation established in 2007 in Khartoum, Sudan. It was registered in Uganda in 2010.