I first saw this exhibition last year at the GoDown Arts Centre. It was then only a couple of months after the signing of the peace accord had brought the hostilities to an official end. The experience was still raw, indelibly fresh, but yet on many levels it belonged not to this world, but to the surreal. We'd lived it, but could not believe it was us, that it had happened to us, and that we had made it happen to us.

Walking through the gallery at the GoDown, with its black walls, was a personal and emotional journey.

Still, I felt detached from the images of burning homes, of young men waving machetes, gangs at roadblocks armed with bows and arrows. I couldn't, I refused to believe that the images I was looking at weren't from Rwanda, or the Congo, or the Sudan, from the endless list of African countries seized up in violent tumult. Even when I conceded that, Kenyan exceptionalism deeply ingrained, insisted that this was an aberration that would never happen again, never again. 

One year later (with the opening date of the exhibition set to coincide with the first anniversary of the signing of the peace accord), the slogan ‘Never Again' seems more like a question than a statement; it is said more with trepidation than with a resolute determination. Kenya today feels as close to the brink of collapse as it did when the violence broke out at the end of 2007. The sense of hope that may have emerged with the creation of the coalition government is all but gone. Several incriminating reports and the most repugnant of scandals later, the photos from the exhibition no longer feel like a distant memory, but rather the chilling foretaste of things to come.

Never again-never again? 

This exhibition is graphic. It is not designed for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach-the photos on display are explicit, and the gore they depict fiery, menacing. The curator has elected, this time to cordon off the more ‘disturbing' images, with warnings declaring their content especially hard to deal with.  A pity, last year they had no such scruples. The work was delivered in its full force to all who attended. You would turn a corner and be confronted by such horrific spectacles as to be scarcely able to humanity in the image presented before you.

This exhibition is loaded with shock value, which I believe is as it ought to be. We need to be shocked, we need to be repulsed, we need to have our stomachs churning, our eyes misting up, and our hearts filling with constructive rage and indignation. Normalcy seems to lull us into a forgetful, irresponsible, careless slumber. It dulls us into a perception of the post-election violence as a bad dream, a reality offensive to our exceptionalism as an island of harmony.

This exhibition looks to wake us up, to demand that we remember, that we work to ensure that this never happen to us again.

The show, also comprised of short documentaries that tell the stories of various Kenyans who were affected by the ethnic and political violence, is set to tour the country after its short stint at the KICC. For those unable to attend, the photos have been compiled into a book that is now available at all major bookstores in the country.

Kudos to the GoDown for making this possible, and to US-AID for partnering with them. Why the Kenya government isn't the one facilitating this exhibition is subject matter for another article altogether. For the citizens of Kenya, an attitude similar to their government's, would be inimical to national progress and reconciliation. I hope that instead the images will call out to people across the country, to engage themselves in ensuring that this will never happen again. Never again.