Safari, 2005
These exquisite still-lifes, taken in Nairobi when Manit was invited to teach a workshop there, exude a quality of absurdity and sadness.
“As a foreigner, I was always accosted by touts to go on safari tours,” he says. “But to me, the word ‘safari’ conjures up visions of white big game hunters; it’s designed for tourists on a colonial fantasy. I feel uncomfortable with such a vision of Africa.
“Then I saw these stuffed animals in the museum, and they were so sad, with their glass eyes and painted backdrops of the African bush. They were killed then they were stuffed and posed as living animals in glass-boxed painted jungles. It’s laughable that so much effort has been put into recreating an illusion of life.
“So this was my African safari, a safari in a city museum.”
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