Anti-Blackness & Colonial Detention: Histories & Legacies

Scholars estimate that British-colonial forces set up and operated over 100 detention camps and works camps to support their campaign to retain control of Kenya in the face of a fierce independence movement in the 1950s. The British colonial administration used this network of camps – referred to as the ‘Pipeline’ – to detain and torture hundreds of thousands of Kenyans with the aim of extracting confessions of allegiance to the Mau Mau independence movement.

In this exhibition, the Museum of British Colonialism examines the remnants of colonial detention camps in Kenya, focusing on Manyani: once a large 'holding camp' used to process detainees in the 1950s, and now one of Kenya's largest maximum security prisons. We explore how Manyani’s design, purpose, and operation were deeply rooted in anti-blackness. The exhibition highlights how frameworks of environment, health, infrastructure, erasure, and resistance help us to understand how current models of imprisonment and anti-blackness are linked.