get yourself some more information about this great project of my mate alex nikolic and his buddies, who founded Slum-TV:

SLUM-TV wants to documents the lives of the people in the slum and to reevaluate these lives through the camera. A camera always attracts attention. Our partners from the slum film and document the life in Mathare. The small movies are then shown in public places in Mathare, like a newsreel. In Mathare, there exist a variety of self-established cinemas. Mostly American and African films and European football is shown there. (text taken from website)

In 2006, during our stay in Kenya in the framework of the Groupexhibition “economy class” at the Alliance Francaise in Nairobi we managed to establish a very productive cooperation with the artists and photographers Sam Hopkins, Fred Otieno and Julius Mwelu. Together we documented and realised Lukas Pusch’s Performance “Vienna Voodoo”, which was done in Mathare. Mathare is the biggest slum in Kenya with approximately 700 000 inhabitants without electricity, running water and a sewage system. During our filming, Fred and Julius told us about the premiere of a German documentary movie for which they had done the camera work two years earlier. Suddenly they became sad and thought that this is odd because approximately one third of the people appearing in the film, have died in the meantime; and the movie is their only memory.

The foundation of SLUM-TV

SLUM-TV wants to documents the lives of the people in the slum and to reevaluate these lives through the camera. A camera always attracts attention. Our partners from the slum film and document the life in Mathare. The small movies are then shown in public places in Mathare, like a newsreel. In Mathare, there exist a variety of self-established cinemas. Mostly American and African films and European football is shown there.

Analogous to weekly news-shows in the early age of television our partners want to show their contributions in these cinemas, and maybe to charge a small entree fee in order to finance videotapes and other material. Copies of the videos are sent to Vienna. We will also try to distribute them under “Creative Common” licenses. That means non profit orientated community TV’s could use material for free, but has to name authors. All other users would have to pay. From the proceeds the manufacturers in the slums benefit again.