German photographers, Miguel Hahn and Jan-Christoph Hartung capture societal issues with more than just depth of field. Their recent photo essay, “The Forgotten”, offers an alternative view of Nairobi’s middle class whose narratives are remarkably absent from the mainstream media. An article in a German newspaper spurred the duo’s month-long trip to our capital city.

“Our research confirmed that Nairobi has one of the fastest, growing middle-classes in Africa,” says Hahn. Once here, they employed a combination of planning and serendipitous encounters to find their subjects. Hartung says, “We were sitting in a restaurant one day, and started talking to a professor about what we were doing in Kenya. He invited us to his house and showed us around, such things happened to us a lot.” Hahn and Hartung made full use of their Facebook page, in which the public followed their progress.

The end result is a gallery of men, women and children at their places of work, at home, at recreational spots, even at a wedding. This interpretation of Nairobi’s middle class in their “natural habitat” raised debate over the choice of subjects—which included UP’s associate editor and UP’s office caretaker. “We decided that anyone who defines themselves as middle-class would be suitable for our project. This generated a lot of criticism from people who told us that our subjects, were either too rich or too poor,” Hahn adds. Next year the “The Forgotten” will be exhibited at the Festival-Circulations in Paris, which features work by young Europeans.

“We would also love to have an exhibition in Nairobi, because we had the impression that the subjects really appreciated what we were doing,” Hartung concludes. Other works by Hahn and Hartung include “Almost Europe”, a photo-essay that uncovers the lives of illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia who use Melilla, a Spanish city in the north of Africa, as a transit point to Europe. “Afghanisland” looks at soldiers training in re-modeled, Afghan cities, all within the Bundeswehr military training area, in Germany. Check out more images of “The Forgotten” at www.hahn-hartung.com/the_forgotten.html