Daily Dispatches: Nairobi is a monthlong exhibit created by photographer Brendan Bannon and writer Mike Pflanz that sends images from Nairobi to Buffalo State.

During the entire month of April, daily photographic dispatches are sent from Nairobi to Buffalo State (as well as two other colleges in the U.S.) and posted in the first floor of Bulger Communication Center. Alongside the exhibition, an interactive website features each day’s dispatch. An accompanying blog allows readers to suggest new stories, engage with Bannon and Pflanz, and create connections with students and professors in real time. The project began April 1 and runs through April 30.

This past winter, Bannon met with the Burchfield Penney Art Center and staff from Buffalo State to introduce a new concept for international journalism, one that challenges the mainstream news’ reporting on Africa, offers new perspectives on a rapidly developing city, and encourages student involvement.

Part of the motivation to start Daily Dispatches was a growing frustration that a true picture of the energy, innovation, ingenuity, and creativity of people living in crowded, ill-planned African cities was being lost in increasingly simplistic presentations in mainstream international media.

Bannon, originally from Buffalo, says Daily Dispatches does not present Nairobi through a rose-tinted lens filter, but aims to show a balanced portrait.

“Don't get us wrong, I believe in the need to tell stories about people caught in cycles of violence or laid low by disease, people whose dreams are impeded by poverty,” he said. “These are important and essential subjects and photography has done much to draw attention to inequity, and in some cases it has led to efforts to attempt remedy. But what we are saying is that the range of stories is often too narrow…Room has to be made to show the rest of the story.”

For Bannon and Pflanz, both former residents of Nairobi, a day spent exploring the economy of a slum dumpsite might be followed by one profiling the city’s leading luxury car dealer. The next day could feature the revival of horseracing and the one after be about Nairobi’s booming immigrant population. Architecture, transport, learning, and religion are among themes to be explored.

A documentary film and book are planned for after its completion, and it is hoped that the exhibition will travel to Nairobi later in the year. For questions, please contact the Burchfield Penney Art Center at (716) 878-4534.