WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project © Coosje Froentjes - ‘PLEASE COME TO SAY HELLO,MORE OFTEN MAY IT BE IN THE MIDST OF A STORM. CHAOS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LOSE AGAIN.’ © Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project View all images ↓
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An ode to my dear friend and the talented Tanzanian designer Vurdu, that passed away too young due to malaria and left behind big dreams and imagination for many.

'WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY'- title of the series

Dar Es Salaam,

I came to say goodbye to a talented friend of mine named Vurdu.
Designer and founder of the growing art-collective Mervki.
Vurdu, I came to say hello to what you left behind.
Sometimes fate is a nightmare, you no longer fly with us.

Buried under soil, while one day we planned on meeting high in the sky.
After you passed yellow butterflies kept appearing wherever I was.
You left behind imagination.
I admire you for leaving behind the non-physical, namely dreams for us all.
Coosje Froentjes

It is with great enthusiasm that I present to you the personal photo series ‘WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY’. With my crowdfunding project ‘A crowd for Meraki’ I raised money to realize this photoseries in Tanzania in 2023. ‘WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY’ is a tribute to the legacy of young Tanzanian designer Saddam K. Ngairo, called Vurdu by his friends. A talented driven designer and the founder of the art collective Meraki, who suddenly died of malaria in 2019. In November 2023, I left for Dar es Salaam to visually explore and capture what Vurdu had left behind. The project became a personal record of his legacy and aditionally shows us how art can connect different dreams, people, cultures and souls. The photo series deals with the feeling of loss, but also shows the beautiful things Vurdu left behind and built up. The resilience of the collective highlights like no other how we can give a broken history a beautiful place in our future through art. In Tanzania, I decided to fully immerse myself in the world of this collective, Meraki, which uses the city of Dar es Salaam as its backdrop. A journey and visual representation from the memory of Vurdu’s dreams, his collective and my desire to capture this as a photographer. The series tells the story of a journey full of tears, full of wonder, full of magic, full of stumbling and getting up again, all characterized by love.

As a photographer, I always look for how to visually bring fantasy and reality together. Together with the Meraki-team, I searched for storytelling in which the fully staged Meraki fashion identity could become intertwined with my personal photography style and simple reality. This process proved to be nurturing but also alienating and complex for me as a young Western photographer entering a world with new rules and realities. The photo series is the result of a month of intensive work in Vurdu’s reality: a world where chaos, beauty, poverty, wealth, dreams and reality come together. A registration of my first encounter, which was sadly also the farewell: the visit of Vurdu’s grave. In doing so, I was guided by themes such as ‘Brotherhood’, ‘Death/Memorial’, ‘Guardian Angel’ and ‘Haunting Ghost’ These themes guided my gaze and lens during the shoots and make the series a powerful and layered visual story. An ode to a beautiful dream, crushed by its reality.

ABOUT COOSJE FROENTJES
We see more, when we stand still. With her photography Coosje Froentjes explores the boundary between the factual world and fantasy. She longs to integrate the two and is always looking for imagination within reality itself. Within the moldability of her own visual world, she tries to start a dialogue between familiar and strange, between past and future. Photography is a way of whispering to her. Even more sharp than shouting, it enters the ear softly, but manages to envelop and lock itself in, because soft words you dare to hold closer. It intrigues her to combine images of various people and moments. This creates a merged universal language in which ev- eryone’s given situation, facts, values and complications disappear. There is space for the reality and value of everyone’s dream. By understanding each other’s imagina- tion and sharing it with one another, a unique connection and intimacy is created within her collaborations and clientele: the construction of a collective dream. This way she hopes to be able to keep adding and seeing more hope and beauty in reality itself, rather than to escape it...

‘Within my photography I am always looking for new enriching translations of our sometimes disturbing reality. I use the medium as a form of tender communica- tion, in which people with different perspectives try to tell each other something. In which beauty will be preserved forever. In photography you can say something that goes beyond words. By uniting and immortalising people, places, times, emotions, cultures, dreams and reality.”

ABOUT MERVKI COLLECTIVE
The Meraki collective started its experimental journey in 2018 at Kijitonyama, Dar es Salaam. They found themselves connected to the Greek word ‘Meraki’, which means doing something with so much love you leave a piece of your soul behind in it. A collective of ideas resulting in a visual utopia, created by a group of Tanzanian youth working in different disciplines such as fashion, performance, visual art, music, lifestyle and creative direction. They create an endless portal of transcendence rooted in black culture, black history and black love. ‘Our aim is to express voices coming from the streets of Dar es Salaam city. In the worlds conceived through our imagery, being is a radical act.’ Their visual content aims to start conversation, the clothing collections carry their stories. The scope, variety and inventiveness of what they create challenges generalized conceptions of youth, sexuality, gender, joy and status. They succeed in creating moments steeped in a secure, collective, timeless- ness - a space for existing as a reality of history - one that goes beyond background or status. The approach of the collective remains inviting by channeling these aspi- rations toward conceptions of abundance that are free from consumption, accumulation or conquest. In other words — free from fear.

LETTER TO MY FRIEND AND DESIGNER SADDAM NGAIRO, VURDU (2020)

Dear V,

Thank you for making my world full of trust. To me now it seems so crazy, how we met on Instagram and started collaborating on a project, with over 10.000 kilometers distance, without ever meeting. Remember when you told me ‘Trust the process, one day we will look back and laugh’? When I saw your work for the first time I was impressed, your vision spoke to me. It was funny how while talking to each other we found out, regardless of our background thus having different ways and perceptions to understanding the world, we spoke the same language. We spoke with words from our core and visuals from our soul. Instead of imposing our beliefs onto each other, we wondered what the other person believed in. With your work I felt a sense of passion and faith, free from existing structures, full of love for your African roots. This is why I experienced your work mostly as a sense of history, freedom and joy.

But addressing too many words to it is not in my place, because I know your life has not always been full of joy. I am not here to pour your ideals into a mold, you are not boxed by something ideological. You did not create from the idea of defining things but rather from feeling, urge and intuition. I will forever cherish that. You told me ‘In Africa we are talented and the world knows’, you knew damn well you were talented, it came so natural to you. I wanted to tell you I miss your smile and talent. You left the biggest piece of yourself behind in this world. Also I came here to tell you your brand Meraki is in good hands of your amazing friends EMMANUEL F T’CHAWI, ABUU HASSAN ALLY, FRANCIS FAUSTIN, KELVIN TARIQ and COLLINS MBULI. They proceed with your visions, great thinker, your dreams are now more alive than ever. And I am more than proud.

Now that I think about it I understand better what this mutual language between us was, Meraki is not just a multi-talented art-collective. It is a language of quality and care that your friends now carry on speaking, because they understand. It connects souls, in your words ‘I am not afraid of losing anyone, but the ones who understand me are good for me to keep’.
I became friends with your right-hand Emmanuel. He asked me to write about you and Meraki. And here I am writing to you, about you and your brand. Any explanation from my side feels wrong, this should have never been my job. But I am not writing to you about our grief or the loss of you V, on the contrary. You left behind a language, a place to create and think from purest intentions only! The boys are working with all they have to keep your dream alive. Fashion, Photography, Film, Poetry and Music. It is all about finding something common through art and expression, it is a network, a collective, you left behind a way of thinking and expressing V! Where every-one’s individual talent has room for exploration, great heights and mistakes.

I admire what you left behind, non-physical, non-consumable. I keep you close to my heart and I trust that one day we will look back and laugh.

Crazy and insane
Forgetting the pain
Treated by the love,

Coosje

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘WHEN THEY TAKE YOUR WINGS,YOU WILL STILL REMEMBER HOW TO FLY.BUT YOU FALL AND LEAVE BEHIND ALL FRIENDS AND ENEMIES IN THE SKY. YOU WILL LOOK UP AND REMEMBER WHAT IT FELT LIKE.ONLY TO REALIZE THIS IS THE WAY ANGELS DIE.’

© Coosje Froentjes - ‘PLEASE COME TO SAY HELLO,MORE OFTEN MAY IT BE IN THE MIDST OF A STORM. CHAOS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LOSE AGAIN.’
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‘PLEASE COME TO SAY HELLO,MORE OFTEN MAY IT BE IN THE MIDST OF A STORM. CHAOS IS A GREAT PLACE TO LOSE AGAIN.’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘BARE FEET ON THE TILES.THE TEXTURE OF THE GROOVES: NOTHING BUT A COMFORTING CHILDHOOD MEMORY. LOOK AT WHAT WE PLANTED, OUR OWN SEED OF IMAGINATION.’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘WHEN THE FEVER CAME,IT LOOKED SO FAMILIAR THAT I DARED TO ASK IT MY QUESTION.“WHAT CAN NOT BE TREATED BY LOVE?” ITS ANSWER WAS SO TRAGIC AND SIMPLE.’

© Coosje Froentjes - ‘WHILE THE STORM PASSED,IT WAS CLEAR THAT:“ONE SHOULD NEVER FORGET HOW TO FLY”. ’
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‘WHILE THE STORM PASSED,IT WAS CLEAR THAT:“ONE SHOULD NEVER FORGET HOW TO FLY”. ’

© Coosje Froentjes - ‘DEAR GUARDIAN ANGEL,OUT OF MY MIND, FOR A SECOND IN SIGHT.TILL WE MEET IN THE SKY, MAY YOUR DIRECTION BE MINE.’
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‘DEAR GUARDIAN ANGEL,OUT OF MY MIND, FOR A SECOND IN SIGHT.TILL WE MEET IN THE SKY, MAY YOUR DIRECTION BE MINE.’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘THANKFUL AND ANGRY AT THE SAME TIME.BROUGHT BACK TO YOU WHAT WAS NEVER MINE,CALL IT A LAST GOODBYE.WHILE WE UNCONTROLLABLY RETURN SO OFTEN IN OUR MINDS.TO HONOR THE BEAUTY YOU LEFT BEHIND. THANKFUL AND ANGRY AT THE SAME TIME. CALL IT A LAST GOODBYE.’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘AN AGREEMENT THAT WAS NEVER MENTIONED, BECAME A PROMISE THAT WAS ALWAYS KEPT. NEVER ALONE,FOR I AM CARRIED BY MY BROTHERS.LET US CARRY THE SAME HEART.AND ALWAYS LAND ON COMMON GROUND’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘AN AGREEMENT THAT WAS NEVER MENTIONED, BECAME A PROMISE THAT WAS ALWAYS KEPT. NEVER ALONE,FOR I AM CARRIED BY MY BROTHERS.LET US CARRY THE SAME HEART.AND ALWAYS LAND ON COMMON GROUND’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘“HOW TO KNOW WHERE YOU BELONG IF YOU HAVE NEVER SPREAD YOUR WINGS?”I SMILED.SOMETHING THIS GORGEOUS AND FREE DESERVED TO FLY AWAY AND NEVER BE SEEN.’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘CHASED BY SOMETHING INVISIBLE.I RATHER REMAIN SILENT.THAN TO SPEAK A MISUNDERSTANDING. A FEELING UNKNOWN TO YOU.BUT FELT BY ME SO DEEPLY.’

© Coosje Froentjes - Image from the WE NEVER FORGOT HOW TO FLY photography project
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‘CHASED BY SOMETHING INVISIBLE.I RATHER REMAIN SILENT.THAN TO SPEAK A MISUNDERSTANDING. A FEELING UNKNOWN TO YOU.BUT FELT BY ME SO DEEPLY.’

© Coosje Froentjes - ‘ANSWER ME IN A DREAM.WHERE OUR TEARS CARRY PURPOSE.AND OUR HEARTS REMEMBER THE WAY HOME.’
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‘ANSWER ME IN A DREAM.WHERE OUR TEARS CARRY PURPOSE.AND OUR HEARTS REMEMBER THE WAY HOME.’

© Coosje Froentjes - ‘ONLY TO REALIZE THIS IS THE WAY ANGELS DIE.’
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‘ONLY TO REALIZE THIS IS THE WAY ANGELS DIE.’