Film producer Michael Uwemedimo and brand designer Simon Kennedy joined forces to defend the rights of disadvantaged communities in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. At WDCD Live Amsterdam on 30 June & 1 July they will tell us how.
“We want to change the way people see and imagine their city. We want to transform people’s perception of the city’s massive informal areas.” Those are the opening lines of People Live Here, a media campaign involving Amnesty International, disadvantaged communities and CMAP in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The aim of the campaign was to end forced evictions and allow people in such communities to make their voices heard.
The initiative is typical of CMAP, which stands for Collaborative Media Advocacy Platform. It was founded by Michael Uwemedimo and Simon Kennedy, who also direct the Human City Project, a community-driven media, architecture, planning and human rights movement in Nigeria.
Exploring design processes through which violently marginalized urban communities might gain a greater measure of control over their representation and the shaping of their cities, CMAP works with partners such as UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance.
The Act of Killing
Uwemedimo is also Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London and a founding member of the filmmaking collaboration, Vision Machine. As producer of the award-winning documentary The Act of Killing, he has been developing innovative approaches to documentary practice as a means of enabling critical reflection on histories of political violence and challenges to official impunity He lives and works in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
For 28 years Kennedy has developed experience in branding, typography, packaging, digital, exhibition and retail design for a wide range of clients from record labels and arts organizations to global brands. Simon was head of graphics at Imagination in NYC and Los Angeles. He was executive creative director of Yello Brands in Sydney. Kennedy has represented the United Nations (UN-Habitat) on delegations to West Africa as part of the Human City Project.
Top image: floating cinema in Port Harcourt