Mombasa and Nairobi--Africa 6 1964

Curator: We're looking at Robert Frank's "Mombasa and Nairobi--Africa 6" from 1964, a gelatin silver contact print. It's a collection of images, presented as a film strip. Editor: It hits you right away, doesn’t it? Fragmented, immediate, almost like a raw data dump of impressions. There’s a visual rhythm even in its roughness. Curator: Exactly. The materiality speaks volumes – the physical act of pressing the negative onto the paper. We're seeing Frank’s selection process, the literal contact between the world and the print. It is a post-impressionist photo. Editor: Absolutely. Look at the people in those earlier frames, draped in white. There's a pervasive symbolism there – purity, perhaps innocence. Juxtapose that with the frames showing destruction; piles of rubble. Curator: Interesting point. Consider also how those seemingly candid moments capture street life but, are deliberately composed using the available materials to develop different shapes of human presence: different ages and gestures on a gelatin backdrop, making them available to multiple contexts. Editor: I see the frame with a clock face staring back at us too. And doors closed with grids on them. Time and transition are at play. What is it telling us? Colonialism ending and some different era in front of the colonized persons. Curator: Right! It's that tension between permanence and transience which is very powerful. Frank's working process – his methods of material experimentation – create these layered narratives of change using physical tools. Editor: Thinking of the closed doors I cannot stop thinking about all those icons locked and sealed with a cross. Is Frank drawing a parallel here? Maybe not fully but there's the start of something. Curator: Fascinating! To see such powerful reflections emerging from his specific manipulation of material and social experience. He gives us a vision that lingers long after we move on. Editor: Absolutely. Frank leaves us pondering these snapshots from daily life—not just for their inherent meanings, but for how those images affect one another over time. A rich narrative indeed.