Weekend Portfolio: Marti Corn
Images and Text by Marti Corn
I’m a documentary photographer and oral historian, giving voice to people living in states of continuous poverty or whose struggles threaten to strip them of their dignity. I listen to the stories of individuals, families, and communities and then allow each to reveal whatever they wish as I make their portrait.
For six years, I traveled to Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya, mentoring a group of young journalists and documenting those who have been forced from their homes to live as refugees in this barren landscape.
Road to Nowhere
Kakuma is a refugee camp located in the northwest desert of Kenya. Translated, Kakuma means ‘Nowhere.’
The images from Road to Nowhere represent those from many cultures who wander along a thread of road that cuts a wide expanse of desert and open sky.
Hundreds of thousands have walked this road — from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Somalia, and South Sudan — escaping civil war and persecution. The cruel irony is that few ever escape Kakuma’s snare. It’s illegal to call it home. There is systemic corruption, deplorable health care, a lack of food and water, and harsh living conditions with temperatures hovering around 100° F. The refugees are trapped with nowhere to go.
Each morning, I watch with curiosity as they step into their day, traveling back and forth between the camp and a nearby town for supplies. They look towards the horizon as though they are dreaming of a day they’ll be allowed to venture somewhere ‘out there’ and once again have a place they may call home.
To view more of Marti Corn’s work, click here.
