always moving forward: contemporary african photography from the wedge collection

8/21/2019 Always Moving Forward: Contemporary African Photography from the Wedge Collection

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Always Moving ForwardContemporary African Photography from the Wedge Collection

gallery 44, toronto | Platform, winnipeg | Art Gallery of Peterborough

Curated by Kenneth Montague


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Always Moving ForwardContemporary African Photography

from the Wedge Collection

2010, Mohamed Bourouissa, MohamedCamara, Calvin Dondo, Samuel Fosso,Hassan Hajjaj, Bouchra Khalili, AntonyKimani, Lebohang Mashiloane, AdaMuluneh, Dawit L. Petros, ZwelethuMthethwa, Guy Tillim, AndrewTshabangu, Nontsikelelo Lolo Veleko,and Pamela Edmonds

ISBN 978-0-9738294-9-5

Mohamed BourouissaMohamed CamaraCalvin DondoSamuel FossoHassan HajjajBouchra Khalili

Antony KimaniLebohang MashiloaneAda MulunehDawit L. PetrosZwelethu MthethwaGuy TillimAndrew TshabanguNontsikelelo Lolo Veleko

May 1 to 29, 2010Gallery 44Centre for Contemporary Photography401 Richmond St. W, Suite 120Toronto,ON M5V 3A8

November 3 to December 10, 2011PLATFORM centre forphotographic + digital arts121-100 Arthur St.Winnipeg, MB R3B 1H3

January 13 to March 4, 2012Art Gallery of Peterborough250 Crescent St.Peterborough, ON K9J 2G1

Essay

Pamela Edmondsmanaging editorAlice Dixon

copy EditorsAlice Dixon, Gaye Jackson

DesignZab Design & Typography

coverZwelethu Mthethwa,Untitled, 2000

inside coversHassan Hajjaj, repeated detail from

Nido Bouchra, 2009

next spreadAndrew Tshabangu, Butchery,Traders and Taxis(detail), 2003

PrintingDavid Schulman,Shapco Printing, Inc.

curatorKenneth Montagueexhibition coordinatorMaria Kanellopoulos

All images courtesy of Dr Kenneth Montague / The Wedge Collection

Wedge Curatorial Projects would like to thank the artists,as well as the following galleries:

Mohamed Bourrissa| Galeries les lles du calvaire, ParisMohamed Camara| Galerie Pierre Brull, Paris

Calvin Dondo| Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg

Samuel Fosso| Galerie Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Hassan Hajjaj| Rose Issa, London / Third Line, Dubai

Bouchra Khalili| Galerie of Marseille, Marseille

Antony Kimani

Lebohang Mashiloane

Zwelethu Mthethwa| Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Ada Muluneh| Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg

Dawit L. Petros| Alexander Gray Associates, New York

Guy Tillim| Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town

Andrew Tshabangu| Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg

Nontsikelelo Lolo Veleko| Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

AlwaysMoving

Forward


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AlwaysMovingForward


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5The photographic works presented arerecent additions to the Wedge Collectionproduced by international contemporaryartists: Mohamed Bourouissa, MohamedCamara, Calvin Dondo, Samuel Fosso,Hassan Hajjaj, Bouchra Khalili, AntonyKimani, Lebohang Mashiloane, AdaMuluneh, Dawit L. Petros, ZwelethuMthethwa, Guy Tillim, Andrew Tshabangu,and Nontsikelelo Lolo Veleko. It is apleasure for us to co-present this exhibition,opening in 2010 at the CONTACTFestival ofPhotography, and touring to Winnipeg in2011, and Peterborough in 2012.

We would like to acknowledge thesupport of the Consulate General of Francein Toronto for providing travel funds toParis-based artists. Thank you to theprogramming committee at Gallery 44,and a special thank you to Sally Fraterfor bringing this important exhibition forconsideration. We also wish to thank oursupporters, members, and volunteers inhelping us to participate in the dialogue oncontemporary art. On behalf of the organizing galleries,we would like to thank Pamela Edmonds forher insightful essay about the works of the

4 This catalogue documentsAlwaysMoving Forward : Contempor ary Africa n

Photography from the Wedge Collection,a new exhibition curated by KennethMontague. Featuring an impressiveselection of contemporary photographicartists, the exhibition reveals a collectionof empowering and timely stories of Africaand African identity. In the words of theexhibitions curator Kenneth Montague,

our aim is not to dene an African

commonality, but rather to suggest thatthere exists a wealth of diversity and astrong desire to express individuality.

fourteen participating artists. Thank youto David Schulman from Shapco Printing,Inc. for his nancial support and expertise

in the printing of this catalogue. Mostimportantly, thank you to KennethMontague and all the artists featuredinAlways Mov ing Forward: Co ntemporar y

African Pho tography fr om the Wedge

Collection for bringing this fresh perspectiveon African photography to Canada.

Lise Beaudry, Gallery 44J.J. Kegan Mc Fadden, P LATFORMCeleste Scopelites, Art Gallery of Peterborough

Directors Foreword


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Time would pass, old empires would fall andnew ones take their place. The relations ofclasses had to change before I discoveredthat its not the quality of goods and utilitythat matter, but movement, not where youare or what you have, but where you comefrom, where you are going and the rate atwhich you are getting there.

C.L.R. James

Africa is a c ontinent in constant mutation.A mountain in the making.

Simon Njami

In Chaos and Metamorphosis, theopening catalogue essay forAfrica Remix,the largest survey exhibition of contemporaryAfrican art to date, curator Simon Njamiarticulates the incessant struggle to dene

and represent African life. It is impossibleto fully comprehend what Africa is. Likeplacing a bet that c annot be won.1With anestimated population of one billion people,Africa is made up of over fty nations with

an estimated one thousand differentlanguages spoken and as many distinctethnic groups. It is perhaps the mostlinguistically and ethnically diverse of theentire worlds continents.

Contemporary African Photography

from the Wedge Collection

by Pamela Edmonds

Always Moving Forward

Mohamed Bourouissa,Le Tlphone, from the seriesPriphries,109 x 95.5 cmdigital print, 2006.


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Revealing the complexity and diversityof African heritage through the photographicimage has been one of the goals of WedgeCuratorial Projects and its founding directorDr. Kenneth Montague, whose projectshave been asserting or wedge-ing aspace for African diasporic creativity in thecontemporary Canadian arts landscape forover a decade. Based in Toronto, Wedgeexhibitions have been acclaimed features inthe citys annual international photographyfestival, CONTACT, premiering the workof some the worlds most acclaimedphotographers including Jrgen Schadeberg,Dennis Morris, Malick Sidib, Seydou Keta,Rotimi Fani-Kayode, and J.D. Okhai Ojeikere.

Beginning as a private gallery inMontagues home, a loft designed by DelTerrelonge (who also designed an extensiveten year Wedge retrospective publicationFLAVAin 2007), Wedge has grown toinclude a range of innovative programming,including group exhibitions and focusedsolo projects, partnered presentations withCanadian and international arts institutions,community workshops, lectures and musicalcompilations.

Montagues vision is driven by his

remarkably cohesive private collection, animpressive range of photographic portraitsby both historic and contemporary artiststaken in varied contexts and styles fromarchival, documentary and studio portraits,to street photography and conceptuallystaged tableaux. The works range fromvintage Harlem Renaissance images, todocumentary photographs of Africans inLatin America; from pictures taken in blackBritish neighborhoods in the 1970s, to shotsof urban street life in New Yorks burgeoning1980s hip-hop scene. These works are linkedby the impetus to represent the complex,changing nature of identity within modernity,particularly as it relates to the globaldiasporic experience of blac kness.

In the last decade, photography, videoand installation have gained popularityas prime mediums of expression for anemerging generation of global artistsexploring different dimensions of theAfrican imaginary and African spaces. Majorexhibitions including Okwui Enwezors

Snap Judgments: New Positions in African

Photography, the exhibition titledFlow atNew Yorks Studio Museum and the recentwork presented at the renowned Biennial of

African Photography, the Bamako Encounters(held in Mali since 1994), have broughtworldwide attention to a rising numberof artists who have turned to lens-basedpractices to open up a critical third spacethat counters the history of Western mediaas a p urveyor of Afro-pessimism.

These critically praised exhibitions andrepresentations are part of a larger shiftaway from western ideals and biases, towardan African identity dened by Africans and

the diaspora. The signicance of this shift

cannot be underestimated: for Africa to

move beyond the ever-present image in themedia of the wretched of the earth (FrantzFanon), we must turn toward those whoknow it, and Africans must tell their ownstories. Against this backdrop, photography,one of the most democratic of mediums, hasemerged signicantly within post-colonial,

post-apartheid and increasingly globalizedlocations as a strategic device to challengethe Western conceptions of Africa allowingthe continent to speak for itself.

This group exhibition brings togethernew and recent works from the WedgeCollection by a cross-section of artistsfrom throughout the African region, all of

whom were born during or after the yearsof independence in the 1960s. This groupof emerging and established artists hasgained visibility in Africa and throughoutthe international art world with workthat reects the current shift away from

the commercial studio portraiture thatpredominated in Africa in previous decades,to reveal an increasing emphasis onconceptual art, documentary, and fashionphotography. They also emphasize a modernand urban Africa, a place thats respondingto the myriad challenges of globalization.

The artists inAlways Moving Forward

are:Mohamed Bourouissa, Mohamed Camara,Calvin Dondo, Samuel Fosso, Hassan Hajjaj,Bouchra Khalili, Antony Kimani, LebohangMashiloane, Ada Muluneh, Dawit L. Petros,Zwelethu Mthethwa, Guy Tillim, AndrewTshabangu and Nontsikelelo Lolo Veleko.Living and working across Africa, NorthAmerica and Europe they are a generationof savvy cultural observers, uniquelyconscious of, and responsive to recentAfrican history, global economics and theirdistinct local environment. Pinpointing whatunites these disparate artists is difcult;

each has their own intuitive response


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to the persistent pressure of our media-saturated society says Montague. Andyet there are commonalities: many worksexplore the challenges and upheavalsimposed by twenty-rst century life. As

the exhibition title suggests, migration,exile, and displacement are part of thefabric of contemporary African life, andthese upheavals are explored in subtle andcomplex ways.

It is important to make clear thatthis collection does not offer a denable

contemporary African identity; in fact, thework points to the reality of African diasporicidentities as being uid, constantly in ux.

Montague comments that the aim is not todene an African commonality, but rather to

suggest that there exists a wealth of diversityand a strong desire to express individ uality.These new voices are often a responseto emerging technologies, transitioninglandscapes, rampant globalization andforces of capitalism including the inuence

of advertising and new media. With an historical awareness, theseartists force us to confront preconceivedideas of national and ethnic identitiesand elucidate the tensions that arise from

the underlying pressures of globalization.Playing with the viewers expectations,their imagery ranges from colourfullybanal to starkly bizarre; from politicallyinvolved or compassionate, to objective orpoetic. Beauty, street culture, immigration,memory, dreams, survival, and everyday lifeare among the themes ad dressed. Taken

together they capture a spirit of strengthand perseverance activated through creativeresistance and unyielding invention.

Curator Simon Njami contends that theproblem that confronts the contemporaryAfrican artist lies in the inadequacy ofexisting tools for expression. It is a mattertherefore of inventing, creating oneself, inthe very sense of the term, of nding a

language that reects ones aspirations.2One artist who exemplies the persistent

drive to create oneself is Samuel Fosso, thecelebrated Cameroonian-born Nigerianphotographer who for over thirty-ve years,

Samuel fosso, The Golf Player,30.5 x 30.5 cm, chromogenic print, 1998


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has transformed himself into multiple guisesincluding sailor, pirate, drag queen, golfer,ight attendant, rock star, and African tribal

chief, in his campy self-portraits. Fosso isoften spoken of as Central Afric as answer toCindy Sherman. But as Leslie Camhi pointsout, Shermans art evolved in the waningyears of the American dream, amid the headybohemia of late 1970s Manhattan. Fossoarrived at his signature style, while a teenagerefugee living in Bangui, the remote capital ofthe Central African Republic.3

Urban street photographers HassanHajjaj and Nontsikelelo Lolo Velekoexplore similar themes, employing clothesand fashion as props to deliberatelychallenge assumptions of identity basedon appearances and historical background.Hassan dresses up Marrakech locals inself-made fashion brands, revealing hisvision of the city through colourful andhumorous narrative portraits, while Velekosstreet shots of Johannesburg hipsters vividlydressed in eclectic, highly individualizedstyles, exude a stark condence and cool

rebellion.Zimbabwean artist Calvin Dondo also

situates his work in the urban landscape.

However, instead of spotlighting singlesubjects, Dondos photographs plummetviewers directly into harried scenes full ofanonymous crowds. His series Charge OfceHarare(2000) presents myriad commutersthreading their way through the city, andeach other. They gaze at us, at others, orseem disconnected, suggesting an emotionalalienation that becomes familiar in an urbancity. The trope of the congested city is alsoexplored by South African artist AndrewTshanbangu. Renowned for his distinctiveblack and white photographs, his worksexplore and document the transitions takingplace in his hometown of Johannesburg.Tshabangus Johannesburg is not beautiful orromantic, but aggressive and gritty, uneasilyshouldering its burden of exploding wealthand mass immigration, constantly changingits shape, and never at rest. Butchery,Traders and Taxis(2003) (see pages 2-3) isan example of photographs the artist has

(left) Nontsikelelo LoloVeleko, Vuyelwa, 30 x 39.9 cmpigment print on cotton rag, 2004

(right) Hassan Hajjaj,NidoBouchra, 136 x 93.5 cm digitalchromogenic print, 2009


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taken from inside moving taxis.A more sombre, recurring theme is

evident in the transcendental homelessnessemanating from Guy Tillims photographs ofcell-like apartments in decaying high-rises in

Johannesburg, or in Lebohang Mashiloanesdocumentation of Somalian refugees intransit to South Africa in hopes of a better

life. Their imagery speaks to the desire forself-determination and freedom, and theprice that is sometimes paid for such dreams.

Tillim, who grew up in a South Africawhen it was still under apartheid, beganhis career as a p hotojournalist with thecollective Afrapix in the mid 1980s. Heis one of South Africas most celebratedphotographers, and is known for his complexstorytelling. For the photo essayAvenuePatrice Lumumba (2008), Tillim travelledthroughout Africa, documenting city streetsnamed after Patrice Lumumba, a leaderin the African independence movement.

Lumumba became the rst legally elected

Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic ofCongo in 1960, but was assassinated in 1961. Tillim explains, Patrice Lumumbasdream, his nationalism, is discernible in thestructures, if one reads certain clues, as is thedeath of his dream in these de factomonuments. 4He adds, In the frailty of thisstrange and beautiful hybrid landscapestruggling to contain the calamities of thepast fty years, there is an indisputably

African identity. This is my embrace of it.5The people in these powerful and poignantlandscapes are often positioned asperipheral, located at the edge of the frame,or slightly out of focus, but there is an acutesense of their humanity and their strong willto survive.

Blurring the lines between cinema andthe ne arts, documentary and experimental,

French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khaliliexplores borders, emigration, anddisplacement in her video and installationwork. Shot from a single vantage p oint

Mapping Journey(2008) reveals thedisordered hidden maps that a migratoryexperience can yield as a path is traced backand forth on a map, following the

calvin dondo, Untitledfrom theseries Harare Charge Ofce, 40 x 60 cmchromogenic print, 2000


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complicated journeys of migrants in severalMediterranean cities. The voice-overs andsubtitles explain the dangerous attempts toslip across borders into saf e havens. Becauseillegal immigrants are not offered straightitineraries and are set adrift by forceddetours, their trips reconstruct the physicallandscape, and produce an alternativemental geography built from the imagination.

South African artist Zwelethu Mthethwais also concerned with the living conditionsand experiences of the migrants who comefrom rural areas to the city to seekemployment in the industrial centres ofSouth Africa. His art add resses the culturaldisorientation of newcomers in their searchfor survival as they create homes forthemselves, recycling materials such aswood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting andcardboard for shelter. In his large-formatcolour photographs, he captures the dignityand pride of his subjects in the modestinteriors of their dwellings, which are oftendecorated with discarded consumer products.Says Mthethwa, Art in our day is not reallydone for arts sake; it questions issuesrelated to global processes such as urbanindustrialization, contemporary cultures,

identity crisis, gender, race and socialimbalances.6

The jarring inequalities between rich andpoor become painfully apparent in

Johannesburg, South Africas economic hub.Photojournalist Antony Kimani documentsthe lifestyle of the citys upwardly mobile inhis Black Diamonds series, a marketing termcreated to describe members of the newblack elite. Most of this group have longabandoned the townships for the citysupmarket northern suburbs, but many stillreturn on weekends to drink in shebeensposing in designer clothes and ashy ca rs.

These Afropolitans, to use another termcoined by Ghanaian/Nigerian/British writerTaiye Tuakli-Wosornu, take pride in theirAfricanness while acknowledging that theyexist in a cosmopolitan environmentinuenced by westernized preferences and

previous spread(left) guy tillim,Apartment Building, AvenueBagamoyo, Beira, Mozambique from the seriesAvenuePatrice Lumumba, 91.5 cm x 131.5 cm archival pigmentink on cotton rag paper, 2008

(right) Lebohang Mashiloane, Untitled, from theseriesSomali Refugee, 29.7 x 42 cm digital print, 2009

Bouchra Khalili,Mapping Journey #1, video, 2009


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consumption habits.7Several artists engage with perceptions

of difference, particularly with the notion ofabsence and presence in relation to the

othered body and the space surrounding it.Mohamed Camaras satirical and ironic,staged self-portraits present him as a touristin European ski resorts, while Dawit L. Petros

conceptual landscapes connect disparatelocations through ideas of movement andembodiment.

In Camaras Certain matins, je suis lecactus de Siberie(2005), the artist is surveyinga monumental landscape; his contemplativepose enhanced by his natural surroundings.By isolating himself within a postcard setting,Camara becomes a metaphor for exile andloneliness. Describing his process, Petrosstates: Living between geographicallocations; Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan,Canada and the United States, has requiredthe navigation of myriad terrains. This

process has provided a set of expansiverelationships; an awareness of the necessityof simultaneity; and the recognition of thecontradictory ties that bind the dispersed tophysical and psychic places.8Petros mixed-media installation The Idea of North(2007)was inspired by pianist Glenn Goulds radiodocumentary of the same title. Gouldsdocumentary is a meditation on therelationship between the Canadianimagination and the vast northern frontier.By linking the American west, Kilimanjaro,and Canadas north, Petros contemplationbecomes frontier as an internal space, one

informed by multiple locales.Proposition 1: Mountain(2007) is a close-

up vivid colour photograph of a hand holdingwhat appears to be a pile of ice, positioned asa mountain set against a white back groundand blue sky. In actuality, this scene is not ofa northern climate, but the arid salt ats of

California and it is this very ambiguity thatsuggests how displacement can open upcreative and emotional possibilities. AsSimone White suggests, place is dened as

much by our ideas and ideals as a physicallandscape: location is not a place, but aproposition.

Zwelethu Mthethwa, Untitled, 96.5 x 129.5 cmchromogenic print, 2000


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Through his concept of the Black Atlantic,Paul Gilroy stressed the importance ofunderstanding race as a phenomenon thatboth emerged and was resisted transnationally.Scholars like W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. Jamesand Frantz Fanon also examined the ways inwhich slavery and racism were pivotal to theformation of Western modernity. Each

focused on the ways in which b lackness wasabsolutely necessary for the construction ofwhiteness as an identity and documentedthe myriad ways in which the black diasporacommunities, in their attempts to constructartistic and aesthetic responses to racism, contributed to an African id entity that nowinforms the West.

Mohamed Bourouissa deconstructsthese power dynamics through raciallycharged images within Paris suburbanhousing projects in a photographic seriescalled Priphrique.Home to large numbers ofoften impoverished immigrants, many from

leftAntony Kimani, Berlinfrom the series BlackDiamonds, 29 x 42 cm digital print, 2009

rightMohamed Camara,Certain matins, je suis lecactus de siberie, 37.5 x 28 cm, inkjet print, 2005


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Bourouissas native Algeria, les banlieueshave served as the centre for volatile deba tessurrounding the acceptance of immigrantcommunities in France. The pictures look likelive-action reportage, but in fact the scenesare entirely staged and performed. Theartists models, whom he meets whenscouting for locations, are asked to pose andplay roles, in what becomes a collaborativeevent and a collective ction.

Bourouissa describes his photographs asderiving from an emotional geometry, a wayof placing a subject in space to create amoment of heightened tension, when

anything, or nothing, could happen.9Stagedlike cinema shots, his compositions referencegrand European painters such as Caravaggio,Delacroix, Gericault, and conceptualphotographers such as Jeff Wall. In LeTlphone(2006) (see page 8), Bourouissacaptures an intense stare-down between twoyoung men. In the background, anotheryouth is poised, cell phone in hand, ready todocument a possible drama. Behind himanother stares vacantly into the phone andnot to the others, echoing perhaps ourglobalized preoccupation with socialnetworking and virtual realities at the

expense of real connection. Accordingly, theartworks title points to the object of f ocus,Le Tlphone, as the mode of communication:technology trumps the individual. Here theartist re-appropriates subjects that havebeen made into clichs by the media andrecontextualises them as actors in their ownreal-life dramas.

Conversely, Ada Muluneh does not

present staged scenes, but documents reallives of ordinary people in her native Ethiopia,as a drive to op pose Western mainstreamideas of the country. Moved by distortedmedia images of the Ethiopian famine,Muluneh took up the camera to presentanother side of the story. Her elegantlycomposed black and white scenes have atimeless quality, showing Ethiopian people inall their dignity. Her subjects are oftenwomen such as Girl in the Light (2001) and GirlinCar (2001), the quest in her work seems tobe an effort to rediscover the landscape andpeople she left as a young girl. Of Girl in Car

Dawit L. Petros, Proposition 1:Mountain, 66 x 86.4 cm digitalprint, 2007


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(2001) she writes: I shot this p icture on myrst trip to Ethiopia after I had been gone

nearly 21 years. I had spent a few dayswalking and driving in Addis Ababa and itwas by coincidence that I saw the little girlriding so proudly with her father I wantedto show that regardless of our dif ferences inthe world we all share the same emotionsthat can transcend cultural boundaries.10Inphotography, Muluneh has found a mediumof transformation.

Frantz Fanon wrote: A national cultureis not a folk-lore, nor an abstract populismthat believes it can discover a peoples true

nature. A national culture is the whole bodyof efforts made by a people in the sphere ofthought to describe, justify and praise theaction through which that people has createditself and keeps itself in existence.11

Thriving on contradiction, movementand the need to look back into the past andforward into the future,Always Moving

Forwardis a testament to the vibrancy anddiversity of contemporary Africanphotography and African life, a collectionthat reinvents with surprising possibility.

1 SimonNjami, ChaosandMetamorphosisinAfrica Remix:ContemporaryArtof a Continent(London:Hayward Gallery,2005), 13.

2 SimonNjami, Timesof ConfusioninJuxtapozArts & Culture Magazine: TheAfrican ArtIssue(November 2008,vol. 15,no. 11),63.

3 Leslie CamhiA Manof aThousandFacesin New York Times(Spring2009),http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/03/08/style/t/index.html#pageName=08fasso,accessedFebruary6, 2010.

4 GuyTillim and RobertGardner,Avenue Patrice Lumumba(New York:Prestel,2008), 2.

5 Ibid.

6 http://www.rosekorberart.com/artists/mthethwa.html, accessed February6, 2010.

7 TaiyeTuakli-Wosornu,What isanAfropolitanin The AfroBeat,http://theafrobeat.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-is-afropolitan-by-taiye-tuakli.html,accessed February6, 2010.

8 http:www.alexandergray.com/Images/Files/Petros_Press_Release_10-15-2008.pd,accessed February6, 2010.

9 MagaliJauffret,The SuburbsasVisualObjectin Priphrique:MohamedBourouissa(Toulouse: LeChteau dEau,2008),7.

10 AdaMuluneh,Prole: AdaMulenehinJuxtapozArts & Culture Magazine: TheAfrican ArtIssue(November 2008,vol. 15,no. 11),44.

11 FrantzFanon, The Wretchedof the Earth(New York: GrovePress, 1968),188.

Ada Muluneh, Girl in Car,49.5 x 76 cm chromogenicprint, 2001

f l i f l li i d H b f t C t i T t HA ti t Bi hi


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Mohamed Bourouissa

Born in Blida, Algeria, MohamedBourouissa describes his latestseries Peripheriesas derived from anemotional geometry, a way of placinga subject in space to create a momentof heightened tension where anythingor nothing could happen. Bourouissagraduated from the cole NationaleSuprieure des Arts Dcoratifs in Parisand completed a Masters Degree atthe Sorbonne. His work was featuredin The New Museums rst triennialThe Generational: Younger Than Jesusin New York. In 2010, amongother group and solo exhibitions,Bourouissa will be participating inManifesta 8, in Murcia, Spain. He livesand works in Paris.

Mohammed Camara

Born in Bamako, Mohamed Camarasresume boasts widely travelled showsincluding Bamako 03, Bamako 05,andSnap Judgments: New Positions inContemporary African Photography.Camara has had solo shows in Paris,and at the Tate Modern in London. Hiswork is featured in the collections ofthe National Museum of Modern Art,the Centre Pompidou, and the MaisonEuropenne de la Photographie. Hebegan his career in 2001 as a self-taught photographer with a borroweddigital camera. Camara lives andworks in Paris and in Bamako.

Calvin Dondo

Calvin Dondo was born in Harare,Zimbabwe, where he studiedphotography at Harare PolytechnicCollege. Since 1988 he has workedas a freelance photographer andcurator. He also teaches photographycourses and works on internationaldevelopment projects. His work hasbeen published by the AssociatedPress, Agence France Presse andBlack Star USA , and is also foundin international collections andmuseums. In 2003, he was curatorfor the National Exhibition devotedto Zimbabwe, and in 2007 he receivedthe Grand Prix at the BamakoEncounters, African PhotographyBiennial. Dondos work focuses on theeffects of globalization, and he livesand works in Zimbabwe.

Samuel Fosso

Born in Kumbain, Cameroon, SamuelFosso is one of Africas mostcelebrated photographers, and hisart is a unique exploration of identity.After opening his own photographystudio at the age of thirteen, he beganmaking a series of self-portraits.The excitement of assuming newpersonas encouraged what hasbecome his signature style. Fossoswork has been shown in venues suchas the Photographers Gallery, theGuggenheim Museum, and the TateModern. Fosso currently lives andworks in Bangui, Central AfricanRepublic.

Hassan Hajjaj

Born in Morocco in the early 1960s,Hassan Hajjaj moved to London atthe age of fourteen. Hajjaj created hisown fashion label R.A.P.in the 1980s,which revealed his capacity to bridgeBritish and Moroccan culture. Hisphotographs combine stereotypicalimagery such as the odalisque, afemale slave sometimes seen asa 19th century symbol of orientalexoticism, with icons of contemporaryfashion. Hajjaj is keen to explore theperception/reection relationshipbetween the Orient and the Occident.His work was recently included inthe 8th Bamako Encounters, AfricanPhotography Biennial. Hajjaj currentlylives and works between London andMarrakech.

Bouchra Khalili

Born in Casablanca, Bouchra Khalilistudied cinema at the SorbonneNouvelle and Fine Arts at the EcolNationale Suprieure dArts de Paris-Cergy. A dedicated artist and activist,her work moves between ne art anddocumentary questioning physicaland imaginary frontiers, displacement,territory and immigration. Her workhas been shown internationally, atthe African Photography Biennial, theNew York Video Festival, at MACROand Villa Mdicis in Rome, theBiennial of Moving Images in Geneva,and the La Force de lart at theGaleries Nationales du Grand Palaisin Paris. Khalili is also a contributorto lm magazines and catalogues,

and the co-programmer of theCinmathque de Tanger in Morocco.She lives in Paris.

Antony Kimani

Born in Nairobi, Antony Kimani hasworked as a freelance photographersince 2005. He currently lectures parttime at Witwatersrand University.Kimani has worked as editor andstaff photographer for the NationMediain Nairobi. In South Africa hefreelanced with the Sunday Timesand Reuters News Agency. He nowprefers shooting features and storiesat his own pace, taking the time tounderstand and engage with hissubjects on a deeper level. Antonyhas been published in BBC Focusmagazine, and in Africa Magazineamong others. Kimani lives and worksin Johannesburg.

Lebohang Mashiloane

Born in the Free State Province inSouth Africa, Lebohang Mashiloanestudied ne art photography at VaalUniversity of Technology, as well asphotojournalism and documentaryphotography at the Market PhotoWorkshop in Johannesburg. His serieson Somali refugees was exhibitedat the 8th Bamako Encounters,African Photography Biennial in2009. Mashilone lives and works in

Johannesburg.Zwelethu Mthethwa

Born in Durban, ZwaZulu-Natal,Zwelethu Mthethwa graduated inphotography from the MichaelisSchool of Fine Art in Cape Townin 1985. He received a FulbrightScholarship, which allowed him tostudy at the Rochester Instituteof Technology in New York State.Mthethwa is renowned for his

powerful images of people living andworking in post-apartheid SouthAfrica. His work has received nationaland international acclaim, and he hashad over thirty-ve solo exhibitionsin galleries and museums in theUnited States, Italy, Germany, Spain,France, Switzerland and South Africa.Mthethwa lives and works in CapeTown.Ada Muluneh

Born in Ethiopia, Ada Muluneh leftthe country at a young age and spenther childhood between Yemen andEngland. Muluneh received her BA inlm, radio and television from HowardUniversity, and worked as a freelancephotographer for The WashingtonPost. She was chosen to be part ofthe groundbreaking show EthiopianPassages: Dialogues in the Diasporaat the Smithsonians NationalMuseum of African Art in Washington.Recipient of the European Union Prizefor her work on Ethiopia exhibited atthe 7th annual African PhotographyBiennial in 2008, she is also thefounder of D.E.S.T.A.FOR AFRICAthatstands for Developing and EducatingSociety Through Art. Muluneh livesand works in Addis Ababa.Dawit L. Petros

Dawit L. Petros was born in Asmara,Eritea and currently lives and worksin New York. He has exhibited hiswork in group shows throughoutCanada and in the United States,including the Studio Museum inHarlem, the Museum of ContemporaryArt in Detroit, Wedge CuratorialProjects, Prex Photo, and the

Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. Hehas also exhibited at the PhotographicResource Center at the MassachusettsCollege of Art in Boston, and thethe Maison de la culture Frontenacin Montral. Petros has receivedFulbright and J. Armand BombardierInternationalist Fellowships, as wellas an Art Matters foundation grantand he has participated in residenciesat the Center for Photography,Woodstock, and the Studio Museumin Harlem.Guy Tillim

Born in Johannesburg, Guy Tillimstarted photographing professionallyin 1986. He joined a collective of SouthAfrican photographers called Afrapix,with whom he worked closely until1990. Tillims work as a freelancephotographer in South Africa, forlocal and foreign media, includedpositions with Reuters Agencybetween 1986 and 1988, and AgenceFrance Presse in 1993 and 1994. Hehas received many awards includingthe Prix SCAM (Societe Civile desAuteurs Multimedia), Roger Pic in2002, the Higashikawa OverseasPhotographer Award (Japan) in 2003,the 2004 DaimlerChrysler Award forSouth African photography, the LeicaOskar Barnack Award in 2005 andthe rst Robert Gardner Fellowshipin Photography from the PeabodyMuseum at Harvard University in2006. Tillim lives and works inSouth Africa.

Artist Biographies


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Andrew Tshabangu

Born in Johannesburg, AndrewTshabangus seriesJohann esburgTransitionscaptures the rituals of dailylife in an African metropolis where thepleasures and tribulations of streetlife are simplied extensions of acomplex politic. Tshabangu studied atthe Alexandra Community Art Centre

in Johannesburg, and in StipendiumGasworks Art Studios in London.Tshabangu regularly participates inworkshops abroad and was invited bythe Nairobi Arts Trust and the Centrefor Contemporary Arts of East Africato conduct a photographic workshopin Nairobi titled Amnesia: PlatformII I. The workshop culminated in anexhibition at the National MuseumNairobi. Tshabangu lives and works inSouth Africa.

Nontsikelelo Lolo VelekoBorn in Bodide, South Africa,Nontsikelelo Lolo Veleko studiedgraphic design at the Cape Technikonin Cape Town and photographyat the Market Photo Workshopin Johannesburg. In 2003, shewas nominated for the MT NNewContemporaries award and waspart of the 2006 group exhibition

Snap J udgment s: New Position s in

Contemporary African Photographyat the International Centre ofPhotography in New York. Hersignature series, Beauty is in the Eye ofthe Beholder, was included in the 7thannual African Photography Biennialin 2008. Veleko lives and works in

Johannesburg.

CuratorKenneth Montague

Kenneth Montague is an art collectorand curator based in Toronto. Founderand director of Wedge CuratorialProjects, for over a decade he hasbeen collecting and exhibitingphoto-based work that explores blackidentity and the African diaspora. In

2007, Wedge published the catalogueFLAVA(D.A.P./Distributed ArtPublishers, Inc.), a document of theprojects, exhibitions and communityworkshops that Wedge had producedthroughout its rst decade. Recent shows curated byMontague include Becomingatthe Museum of Contemporary ArtDetroit; head roomat the Museumof Contemporary Canadian Art,Toronto; and an upcoming exhibition

at the Royal Ontario Museum inToronto titled Position As Desiredthat investigates African-Canadianidentity. Montague sits on the PhotographyCuratorial Committee of the ArtGallery of Ontario, and the AdvisoryBoard of the Ryerson PhotographyGallery and Research Centre. Heis a frequent lecturer and panelistat international art symposiums,including Bamako Encounters, African

Photography Biennial in Mali, and atARCOMadrid. The Wedge Collection has grownto encompass both historical andcontemporary photography, as well asnon-photo based works that challengenotions of representation and identity.

WriterPamela EdmondsPamela Edmonds is a visual and mediaarts curator originally from Montreal,Quebec. She received her BFA andan MA in Art History from ConcordiaUniversity. The former co-editor ofKOLA, a Black literary magazinebased in Montreal, she is interested

in developing and curating projectsthat focus on the creative productionof African diaspora artists, and inwork that deals with contemporaryissues surrounding the ideologies ofrace, gender, cultural identityand representation. Edmonds isthe former Program Coordinator ofA Space Gallery, Toronto, andcurrently works as curator at theArt Gallery of Peterborough, Ontario.

always moving forward: contemporary african photography from the wedge collection

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