Kamoinge Workshop

The Kamoinge Workshop was a collective of New York based photographers. Translated to “a group of people acting together”, “Kamoinge” comes frm the language of the Kikuyu people of Kenya. The collective was formed for the artists to share their critical perspectives, technical and professional experiences, form friendships, and capture Black life. The artists invovled were dedicated to the power of photograpghy as an independent form of art that could be used to innovately capture intimate moments of Blackness and gave them the power to manage their own narratives. The workshops further captured important moments of the Black Arts Movement. Artist Ming Smith considered herself the direct product of the Black Arts Movement. She commented that “they introduced me to the idea of owning the images that we saw of ourselves.”