13650

Histories of Photography in Africa

N.N.

Kommentar

Soon after the invention of photography in Europe, the new technology travelled to Africa where, in coastal towns, photography studios were established. Simultaneously, European anthropologists used the new technology to document ethnographic “types” for the purpose of racial science. From the start, therefore, photography, with its multiple affordances, has been used to do different things. In line with an important essay by Allan Sekula, one might say that photography in Africa was used for both its “honorific” and its “repressive” affordances. But in the struggle for African independence, photography also assumed the role of documentary, enlarging the sphere of the political imagination as Jennifer Bajorek has recently argued. In this module, we will try and pay attention to the different affordances of photography in Africa. The aim of the module is to study these affordances thematically and historically. We examine how explorers used photography in the recording of hunting and looting, or how anthropologists used photography in the production of colonial knowledge. Then we examine the appropriation of photography by African photographers in studio photography and the role photography played in the struggle for political independence. We also pay attention to the very important role of photography in resistance against Apartheid in South Africa. The module will also look at art photography, which is still a rather marginal phenomenon on the African continent, although there have been various recent exhibitions on the subject. Finally, we look at photographers have turned to the archive as a method to explore the history of the continent. The module aims to define the canon as widely as possible and will include the work of LGBTQ activists as well as White South African photographers. Schließen

Literaturhinweise

Photography in Africa: Ethnographic Perspectives. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2012.