Mimi Cherono Ng'ok

Mimi Cherono Ng’ok created Love Song #9 (I knew you before I met you) specifically for the Idea Lab. In these vivid color photographs of vegetation, architecture, and people, the artist combines the visual language of vernacular photography, the tactility of printed material, and the immersion of installation art to produce an emotional, multisensory experience. In her work, Cherono Ng’ok presents an affective register distinct from most visualizations of “African photography,” which typically focus on subjects such as the colonial gaze, the postcolonial fashioning of the self, or the apartheid-era fight for civil rights. Instead, the artist describes her practice as an “emotional cartography”—a photographic mapping of her sense of attachment to the people and places she encounters. A record of becoming and everyday life, Love Song #9 (I knew you before I met you) encourages a meditation on the bond between people and their environments.