Science Museum Launches Poignant Online Exhibition: Vanishing Africa

The Science Museum published a powerful new online exhibition, Vanishing Africa, which reveals irreversible transformations driven by climate change through the intimate lens of visionary Kenyan-born photographer Mirella Ricciardi. 

The exhibition features visual records of East Africa’s Indigenous peoples, including the Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Orma, Pokot and Rendille. Taken over two years in the 1960s, the photographs in Vanishing Africa capture a land of untamed wilderness, diverse wildlife, and Indigenous communities attuned to nature. More than sixty years on, that world is under threat from climate change and biodiversity loss and this exhibition bears witness to ecosystems already transformed beyond recognition. These photographs present an East Africa many no longer recognise. 

Vanishing Africa has been published to celebrate the UK/Africa Season of Culture and launches ahead of the international climate summit, COP30. The exhibition was curated by Dr Roger Highfield (Science Director) and Dr Julia Knights (former Deputy Director), and presented in collaboration with Amina Ricciardi-Dempsey, Director of the Vanishing Africa Mirella Ricciardi Archives. 

Roger Highfield, Science Director at the Science Museum Group, said: ‘Mirella Ricciardi’s images challenge us to think about the impacts of climate change on indigenous livelihoods, culture and ecosystems. From what we learned from members of the Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Orma, Pokot and Rendille, it is clear that Ricciardi’s photographs speak not only to what has been lost, but to all that remains—and demands our protection.’

The exhibition features Ricciardi’s photograph of fishermen on the shores of Lake Turkana in northwest Kenya, the world’s largest permanent desert alkaline lake, together with insights from the local community about the impact of climate change in the six decades since the image was captured. Shrinking ancient glaciers on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, are impacting the Maasai, who were photographed with the mountain in the distance by Ricciardi, and other tribes who depend on the Kilimanjaro’s water. The complex underlying causes behind the shrinking glaciers – which may vanish by 2040 – are also explored alongside this photograph.     

Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng of Imperial College London, Trustee of the Science Museum Group and recipient of Kenya’s Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear, said: ‘This online exhibition reveals that climate change is not only a scientific challenge, but a cultural emergency. These images show people’s resilience in the face of adversity, and the deep bonds between them, land and tradition—connections we may sever forever if we do not act.’ 

Amina Ricciardi-Dempsey, Director of the Vanishing Africa Mirella Ricciardi Archives said: ‘My mother captured a world on the brink, along with its spirit. These photographs are our inheritance—and our responsibility. They compel us to see, to remember, and to act.’

Alongside the portraits are voices of climate scientists, Indigenous people and conservationists. In addition to spotlighting loss, the exhibition explores how communities are adapting: diversifying livelihoods, reviving ancestral ecological practices, and confronting the so-called East Africa Climate Paradox—where satellite data shows a drying trend, despite climate models forecasting more rain.

The Vanishing Africa online exhibition is published on the Science Museum website: https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/vanishing-africa-through-mirella-ricciardis-lens

NOTES TO EDITORS

Contact Will Dave in the Press Office at william.dave@sciencemuseum.ac.uk or +44 (0)20 7942 4429 for further information. Please find images available to download here for press use only.

ABOUT THE SCIENCE MUSEUM  

The Science Museum is part of the Science Museum Group, the world’s leading group of science museums that share a world-class collection providing an enduring record of scientific, technological and medical achievements from across the globe. Over the last century the Science Museum has grown in scale and scope, inspiring visitors with exhibitions covering topics as diverse as robots, codebreaking, cosmonauts and superbugs. The Science Museum was named a winner of the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year prize for 2020. sciencemuseum.org.uk. Follow on X, Facebook and Instagram.  

ABOUT MIRELLA RICCIARDI 

Mirella Ricciardi was born on July 14, 1931, in Kenya, to an Italian father and a French mother, an artist who had studied sculpture under Auguste Rodin. Ricciardi began working in the early 1950s in Paris as an intern for Harry Meerson, a photographer at Vogue magazine. He taught her to see and develop her own unique visual style and storytelling ability.

Ricciardi was assigned to go in search of images that told fascinating stories, starting with her native Kenya, a project which paved the way for her successful 1971 book, Vanishing Africa, in which she aimed "to photograph the tribal life and customs of the people of East Africa before they changed forever".