Kamoinge Workshop information

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The Kamoinge Workshop is a photography collective that was founded in 1963.^[1] In 2013, the group stood as “the longest continuously running non-profit group in the history of photography.”^[1] The collective was born when two groups of African-American photographers came together in collaboration.^[1] The first group, named Group 35, consisted of photographers James Ray Francis, Earl James, Louis Draper, Herman Howard, Calvin Wilson, and Calvin Mercer.^[1] Louis Draper was especially crucial to its founding.^[2] The other group did not yet have a name, but included African-American photographers Albert Fennar, James Mannas, Herbert Randall, and Shawn Walker.^[1] The first director of the group was Roy DeCarava, who led the collective from 1963 to 1965.^[1][3]

Al Fennar suggested the newly united group of artists to name themselves Kamoinge,^[1] after reading Jomo Kenyatta’s book, written in 1962, called Facing Mount Kenya -- Kamoinge can be translated to “a group of people who are working together” from the Kikuyu language, which is spoken in Kenya primarily.^[1] The intent of the group is to cultivate a supportive and yet critical artistic community that captures black life in all of the photographers' vast experiences of it. Kamoinge member Deborah Willis is quoted in Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge as saying “We have seen countless images of black life across the diaspora and I consider these photographs to be a mosaic of the black experience."^[1][2] The group as a unit captures photographs of black life in its complexity rather than in a stereotypical or clichéd manner.^[2]