Photography exhibition fit for African monarchs
Image: Aida Muluneh, Star Shine, Moon Glow, 2018, from the series Water Life, commissioned by WaterAid and supported by the H&M Foundation
Daniel Nelson
From the moment you enter A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography, you know you’re in for something a little different.
You are confronted by a room of resplendent Nigerian monarchs, an extraordinary manifestation of regality, whether clad in all-white garb or entirely wrapped in purple.
George Osodi’s monarchs make an arresting start, and the other 35 photographers and their 150 works ensure that you stay on your toes: you never know what’s around the corner in the next room
It might be a recreation of the beheading of Holofernes (a reminder of how photography has often taken its lead from art), or a video of a project in which women with kegs of water attached to their feet trudge through a crowded street.
It could be upside down reflections of Kinshasa in puddles, Aida Mulunch’s striking red and blue palette, or the empty lines of Kiluanji Kia Menda’s ‘A City Called Mirage’: “People looked at the impressive new buildings [in Luanda] as a symbol of development, but the truth is that the vast majority would not have the opportunity to enter such spaces.”
There’s colour and black and white, masks (of course) and documentary, large formats and small, older and newer (the definition of contemporary is unclear), symbolism and reality, street studio portraits and flights of fancy.
The variety is amazing, yet unsurprising in the world’s most diverse continent. The exhibition title and the tone of the exhibition reflects a feeling of Africanness rather than national or religious or linguistic allegiance, even if the continental feel is partly generated by a reaction against Western stereotypes and racism: let’s not forget that historically the camera in Africa has close links with colonialism, pointed at Africans rather than by them.
I am unclear about what this important, entertaining show adds up to, and every visitor will have an individual say on its balance and significance. But there’s much to see, enjoy and contemplate here.
* A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography, £17 / concessions available, is at Tate Britain, Bankside, SE1 until 14 January. Info: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/contemporary-african-photography-a-world-in-common
Artists’ quotes:
Quotes from the exhibition catalogue, edited by Osei Bonsu, unless marked otherwise.
Atong Atem (Ethiopia)
"The first photographs ever taken of Africans were colonial ethnographic depictions that presented the subjects in a really skewed and problematic way - I wanted to see what happens when we turn the lens on ourselves and subvert that ethnographic gaze. To me, it's a moment of power and reclamation, and an opportunity for us to celebrate our personal and cultural identities."
Sammy Baloji (D R Congo)
"It was interesting for me to find these traces of the pre-colonial system, these links to history and say — look there was a whole cultural, social, aesthetic and meaningful system in place before... and working with this material as a way to re-direct the system, denouncing the political and economic impact that colonialism had in the Congo." - from an interview with the artist in TL Mag (Blaire Dessent) in May 2023
Andrew Esiebo (Nigeria)
"I am struck by the fortitude and inventiveness of Lagosians in the face of rapid urban renewal - their endlessly creative ways of surviving. I turn my lens towards these disparate phenomena to capture Nigeria's megacity."
Ndidi Dike (UK)
“Information is one of the greatest currencies in Lagos. Information is hidden and buried: it is inaccessible to the people, and only permitted to those in power. I think information is the foundation on which cities are built; it's the way they operate, how power is generated, how inequality prevails."
Malala Andrialavidrazana (Madagascar)
"We should always remember that cartography was among the most powerful political and ideological tools during the nineteenth century. In the same way, banknotes often conveyed stereotypes promoted by consecutive regimes and leaders. The roles of these printed documents are not so far from those of photography." (Blaire Dessent) in May 2023
Délio Jasse (Angola)
"The contrast between the image itself and the place in which it was taken was what interested me in this case. These images could have been taken anywhere in the Western world. They are in Africa, but there is nothing that indicates the location."
Julianknxx (Sierra Leone)
"You can't talk about Freetown, or the Krio people, without talking about the water. You have to talk about the Atlantic Ocean, the triangular trade route and the slave trade, and the relationship between the UK, the Americas and the Caribbean ... People ask why I'm so fixated on Freetown, but I'm not telling a west African story, I'm telling a global story - it's a global history."
Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou (Benin)
"Egungun masqueraders are a part of my local culture. For me, the Egungun use public performance to tap into a narrative of localised Yoruba memories, personalised histories, and ritual. They play a fundamental role in upholding the ethical values of the community. I think what interested me the most about these performances were the dynamic tensions that occur between this world and the next. My individual portraits of Egungun try to confront this ‘betwixt and between’ quality, as ancestral visitors are temporarily made manifest to aid and guide the lineages to which they belong."
James Barnor (Ghana)
"... you get to know how the camera works and how I can get the best from it. Then I'm going. How to develop the film and printing. When I'm printing, I'm particular. Even though that is not the best. I always like perfection. So I like technique - technique of taking the picture, the technique of doing that more than the artistic side." - from an interview in Al Jazeera (Marlaine Glicksman) on 4 July 2022
Em'kal Eyongakpa (Cameroon)
"Basically, what I do as a human being is born from my quest to question the obvious in an attempt to understand the beautiful chaos I was born into as well as the unknown. The art is a direct response to my observations and an attempt to transcribe what I feel.”
Rotimi Fani-Kayode (Nigeria)
"My reality is not the same as that which is often presented to us in Western photographs. As an African working in a Western medium, I try to bring out the spiritual dimension in my pictures so that concepts of reality become ambiguous and are opened to reinterpretation."
François-Xavier Gbré (France)
Gbré describes his work as "containing clues, stories, and traces of some forgotten lives, abandoned, now in the dark.” Through the act of documenting his tracks, Gbré explains, the "camera becomes a weapon for raising awareness”
Hassan Hajjaj (Morocco)
"I wanted to show the world what I saw of the country and its people - the energy, the attitude; the inventiveness and glamour of street fashion; the fantastic graphics on everyday objects and products; people's happy outlook and strength of character."
Samson Kambalu (Malawi)
"I'm a cosmopolitan. I believe in people, I'm not too sure about countries. I think there should be a thousand countries every day. I like the idea that every moment is a country of its own."
Kiripi Katembo (D R Congo)
"Even though the picture looks surreal, I wanted it to reflect the reality of life in Kinshasa - these big contrasts of colour, bright oranges and yellows, the taxis and the billboards... For me, these reflections are like windows into another, more beautiful reality. It's a doorway into a dream."
Lebohang Kganye (South Africa)
"Family photographs are more than just a memory of moments or people who have passed on, or reassurance of an existence. They are also vehicles to a fantasy that allows for a momentary space to ‘perform’ ideals of ‘family-ness’ and become visual constructions of who we think we are and hope to be, yet at the same time being an erasure of reality. I realised how the family album is composed of a selection of what shall be remembered and forgotten; therefore, our histories become orchestrated fictions, imagined histories."
Mário Macilau (Mozambique)
"I believe in the power of images, and I've been exploring the relationship that exists between the environment, human beings, and time. Photography has connected me to incredible moments and experiences and all the places have taught me something valuable... I usually work on long-term projects which allow me to understand the stories before I even use the camera. I am then able to capture those moments after I've spent a lot of time with them, and we have earned each other's trust."
Sabelo Mlangeni (South Africa)
"I have been moving around Johannesburg and its closest suburbs as someone interested in storytelling about everyday life. In my early walks, I found myself in many spaces where the situation and the living conditions were impossible to look at and to photograph. Then I started wondering, what to frame? Soon another side of the hardships emerged, and I attempted to capture that hidden beauty, that ordinary peace.” – from the Blank Gallery biography of the artist
Santu Mofokeng (South Africa)
"I was less interested in 'unrest' than in ordinary township life." - from an article in The New Yorker (Oluremi C. Onabanjo) on 24 February 2020
Fabrice Monteiro (Belgium)
"My work is about unity, about revealing the ways in which we are all connected, to each other and to nature... I seek to build bridges between all for a more comprehensive approach to this unprecedented challenge in the history of humanity."
Aida Muluneh (Ethiopia)
"The world is continually bombarded with the social plight of Africa; therefore my focus in this project was to address these topics without the cliché that we see in mainstream media. In a sense, to advocate through art.”
Wura-Natasha Ogunji (US)
"While the piece poses questions about the work of women, it is also about labour and the politics of change. How much is enough? What is the tipping point in a society where people struggle to meet basic needs? When do people have an opportunity to rest, reflect, envision, imagine, and enact another way of being? I am particularly interested in the role of women in these dialogues."
Zohra Opoku (Germany)
"Through referencing the myriad ways individual style and dress are closely linked to cultural displays of pride and social and economic status, I used second-hand garments and screen-printed on used imported fabrics, which addresses broader questions of what roles custom dress plays in politics, globalisation and commerce."
George Osodi (Nigeria)
"Documenting and archiving culture is a key to understanding cultural origins, and thus developing a sense of identity."
Ruth Ossai (Nigeria)
"I want my family to have total control over how they portray themselves - whether it be through choices in backdrops, poses, or their own personal style ... I wish my images to fill my subjects with power and agency, so they can be free and allow their true selves to shine through."
Léonard Pongo (Belgium)
Pongo aims to present the "varied natural landscape of the country as a character with its own will and power, like an open book that tells the story of humanity and the planet, with Congo at its centre."
Zina Saro-Wiwa (Nigeria)
"The Invisible Man is not a commemoration. As with all masks it is a living thing. It is activated by dance and in my case by video installation performance. And it is carved from special trees in Ogoniland. I feel that through this mask I have re-inscribed myself into the landscape and asked the invisible to dance for me. Death is not silence and it is not an end. Spirit remains active through living culture."
Khadija Saye (UK)
"We exist in the marriage of physical and spiritual remembrance. It's in these spaces in which we identify with our physical and imagined bodies. Using myself as the subject, I felt it necessary to physically explore how trauma is embodied in the black experience."