AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME ! _ Beijing

Kiluanje Kia Henda

Marco Ambrosi

非洲：你看我，我看你！

AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME !

非洲：你看我，我看你！

AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME !

A Photographic exhibition curated by Awam Amkpa 策展人: 亚旺•安 _ Awam Amkpa ［放置一张只呈现卡车轮廓的照片作背景］

在西非的大地上，木制的“妈咪卡车”(Mammy Wagons)｣，飞越路面的洞坑，避开断头路，以时速５７公里以上，昂然走遍陌生的国境，尾随而来的是一 幕幕鲜艳夺目的影像。卡车的名字源自市集的女贩，她们把食用农作物，如山芋、西红柿、洋葱、车前草和棕榈油，打从家国运往其它国家。每辆卡车有 一位司机、一名助手和一名向导。司机负责应付变化莫测的路面，助手一般懂得机械维修和熟识汽车的内部运作，而向导则常常坐在卡车边上，负责应付 周边的人群，以及充当公关和跑腿。 横跨国界的｢妈咪卡车｣，除了肩负运送食粮的重任，还是活生生的广告牌，车身上饰有富艺术性的题字和绘画。其内容可能使受欢迎的电影、国家性标志 或是非洲的民间故事，并配上以英语或法语书写的标题、智慧格言。典型的语句如“上主是我的牧人”、“既然没有目的地，为何急着走”、“正义乃属 贫穷者的财富”和“这世界不仅为你而存在”。据说，迦纳小说家亚曼(Ayi Kwei Armah)那部空前绝后著作的书名 － 《美丽的人儿仍没诞生》 (The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born)–是取自一辆“妈咪卡车”背后的绘画。每当“妈咪卡车”以高速奔驰于年久失修的道路上，摇晃地绕过陌生的弯角 时，它们车身上的广告，为路人和旁观者添上点滴思绪，其中带有渴望、挫折感和寄望有朝一天，社会将变得更好。

Soibifaa Dokubo

很多年前，我在尼日尼亚的道路上，看见一辆“妈咪卡车”。这次展览的题名 － 《非洲：看见你，看见我！》，便是取自它车身上的绘画。当时那卡车 越过我们乘坐的车辆，它的车尾还喷出气味难闻的柴油黑烟。我的视野里，长久地只看到一双眼睛，置身于一幅绘有条纹的非洲地图中。在那纸轮廓鲜明 的地图上，标示着 “看见你，看见我！”的字句。这辆卡车背后的画作，尽显一个富动感的非洲。这画作尽显其作者或是委托人的抱负，以嬉戏的方式 ，把非洲大陆呈现为一项永无止境的工程，内里现代元素重叠，历史角落亦因现代协商而掉进不明朗的未来。“妈咪卡车”要所有在尼日利亚危险公路上 游历的旅客，彼此承认对方的存在，同时向大家勇往直前的胆量致敬。当那卡车掠过时，我们的思潮起伏。我们安坐在舒适的车上，开始沉思：我们身为 非洲人，是如何看待自己、想象自己；同时，希望别人如何看待我们。我们要战胜照片里那些具贬义性的非洲人体造型，并找来新的表现方式 — 艺术性 和纪录性的、引来批判和赞赏的 — 以非洲人民作媒体，诉说他们的作用，表达他们有决心，去重新创造他们的世界。 在这前提下，我运用摄影技巧，展现非洲人民在不同方面的自我表现，并指出这种自我表现方式，对塑造非洲摄影的当代风格，有着与日俱增的影响力。 这次展览的照片，某部份着重照片的推论性，它们清楚有力地表现移居者在不同城市里的身份，记录社会大事，为社会和历史作象征性和物质性的诠释。 另一部份的照片，着重以照片作为媒介，透过它们的颜色、曝光时间、结构、构图和所采用的光控常规，重新讲述非洲和非洲人民的故事。 非洲摄影师从他们的殖民者身上，承继了殖民者拍摄非洲人民样板照片的特色。纵使非洲人民存活于历史中，是历史的拍摄对象，但却没有操控历史的能 力。这试图把非洲摄影变得具客观性的范例，为非洲人民带来了一种奇特的存在或不存在的状况。但当非洲摄影师开始运用他们的技艺，去抗衡那些使非 洲人民丧权的、具殖民色彩的人种志风格照片时，情况有了变化。他们的作品不再把拍摄对象形象化，反而与拍摄对象的梦想和抱负，建立对话。随着非 洲人民为了拍照而开始在摄影机前摆出各式姿势，他们好像在说：“摄影机必须看见我，因为我想别人看见我”。拍摄对象缓缓走进照相馆，委托非洲摄 影师为其拍照，以便寄往他们的家乡、家庭和社群。若摄影师跟他们谈及一些重要话题，不时出现紧张情况。当非洲摄影师以不同方式，把他们的社会重 要性表现出来，使其拥有力量，来暗示民族自决，这亦会把气氛变得紧张。 《非洲：你看我，我看你！》 描绘非洲摄影的历史，诉说这段历史如何影响非洲以外人士，表达非洲及其不同海外族群的梦想。其它著名的非洲裔策展 人，如奥奎•恩威佐（Ｏｋｗｕｉ Ｏｎｗｅｚｏｒ）和西蒙•尼贾米（Ｓｉｍｏｎ Ｎｊａｍｉ），让我们对于拍摄非洲的起源、进程、复杂性和认受性，有更深入的了解。这次展览扩 大且延续了他们的故事，展示当代非洲人以艺术性和纪录性的照片，重新把非洲人民呈现于人前。整体而言，那些照片道出非洲人民的主观性，记录正在 衍生流变的社会和历史，这有助理解影像对解放非洲所作的贡献。该系列照片反映了在殖民主义和新殖民主义下，非洲社会出现的病态以及非洲各族群如 何冲破它们民族国家的压制，重拾自由。其中一些照片记述不同的族群，变成争取决策权的工具。 非洲包含多种文化和历史背景，拥有各式各样且国际性的取景场地。这些场地是移民群的交汇点，也是贸易中心。在那里，富艺术色彩的传统得以保存， 也获创新。有些取景点是自由地，但有些地处特定边界之内，这些边界因十九和二十世纪的一些历史事件而存在：欧洲在非洲开拓殖民地、第二次世界大 战及反殖民民族主义的出现。新殖民主义的独裁政府，籍着人们取得独立的快慰，得以抬头，令人质疑的管治制度亦纷纷创建，使得非洲各民族国与其国 民反目成仇。敌对派系不断争夺非洲大陆的矿物和有价值之物，促使犬儒主义高涨，人民对政府失去信任。非洲货币在全球经济中的价值，更令非洲人民 失势。当代非洲艺术家，对这些现实生活中的政治镇压和经济边缘化深感兴趣。他们运用影像，为一连串的新开始，预视它们的乌托邦。 非洲不仅是一片土地，更在非洲大陆内、欧洲、美洲和亚洲中，有着许多牵动情感的空间，使非洲的艺术家努力置身其中。这些艺术家出现于家国以外的 展览场馆，在那些由非洲以外的摄影师近期所拍摄的有关非洲及非洲人民的照片上，留下他们的标记。他们的出现，促进了非洲人民之间，讨论自我表现 对家国的意义，亦对有关自我表现的互文对话，起了催化作用。 《非洲：你看我，我看你！》由三部份组成。第一部份展示在照相馆里拍摄的作品和其它照片，讲述的是非洲人民尝试融入所移居的城市环境的故事。在 整体上，表现一众非洲摄影家如何去操控、适应和摆脱前殖民统治者遗留下来的框架及摄影规范，亦展示近代各种摄影技术。那些由摄影家奥杰克勒 （Ｏｋｈａｉ Ｏｊｅｉｋｅｒｅ）、马默都•马巴耶（Ｍａｍａｄｏｕ Ｍｂａｙｅ）和马利克•西迪贝（Ｍａｌｉｃｋ Ｓｉｄｉｂｅ）拍下的黑白照，充分体现了摄影师与拍摄对象在共同合作把非洲的 不同空间和自我刻印在照片上的过程中，彼此之间的凝重对话。这些照片表达非洲人民的梦想和自我，运用服饰、化妆、发型、布质背景及戏剧性的姿势 ，展现殖民地和后殖民空间的主观性。其它触及的题材包括非洲的城市和社会结构、仍在形成中的小区以及由非洲大陆不同地区摄影家在照相馆以外拍下 各式事物、姿态和样子的作品。在这一系列照片中，还记述了一些反殖民主义的非洲英雄和他们对真正自由的期盼。他们的造像是不完整的，用以象征非 洲取得独立这承诺，没有兑现。虽然如此，这些照片没有使非洲的过去显得暗淡。它们代表非洲的解构，为非洲在２１世纪的重生，揭开序幕。 第二部份献上早期人种志风格的肖像照，把非洲幻想成一片荒漠，欧洲的原始“别些人”散居于这片大地之上。我们还用上重新解读的技巧，使这些照片 成为摄影历史的主角。这段历史是工业化社会的重要产物，界定何为进展，同时亦在某些方面，建构了进展之核心及其周边历史。 第三部份展示非洲以外摄影师的作品，以当代非洲及其人民的照片为主。由于这些摄影师跟非洲的艺术家保持对话，他们的作品使非洲的影响范围得以扩 展，让非洲人民拥有更多机会，成为历史里的拍摄对象。好像我在尼日尼亚路上遇见的“妈咪卡车”，这些照片跟其它部份的作品，一同向非洲人民及全 世界说声：“你看我，我看你”。 策展人： 亚旺•安柏 （Ａｗａｍ Ａｍｋｐａ） 联合策展人：玛达拉•希雷尔（Ｍａｄａｌａ Ｈｉｌａｉｒｅ） 制作： Ａｆｒｉｃａ．Ｃｏｎｔ． （葡萄牙里斯本）

非洲摄影和电影的自我表 现

AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME !

A Photographic exhibition curated by Awam Amkpa Wooden framed vehicles known as Mammy Wagons fly through potholes and blind corners into uncertain landscapes across West Africa, at speeds well above the 57 k.m.h. (kilometers per hour) emblazoned on their tails. They derive their name from market women who transport food crops like yams, tomatoes, onions, plantains, and palm oil across their home countries and into other nations. Each wagon is manned by a driver responsible for maneuvering the lorry through treacherous roads, a mate who is usually a mechanic familiar with the inner workings of the vehicle, and a conductor who combines the roles of public relations man, errand boy, and crowd controller from his precarious perch on the edges of the wagon, exposed to the elements.

Besides discharging the important function of ferrying much needed food across nations, these Mammy Wagons serve as billboards for artistic sign writing and paintings. These paintings might feature popular films, national symbols, or interpretations of African folktales. Captions or even gnomic statements written in English or French accompany the images. Statements such as ― ‘The Lord is My Sheppard,’ ‘No Destination, Why Hurry,’ ‘Justice is the Poor man’s Wealth,’ ‘The World is not for you alone,’-- are typical.

As legend has it, the Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah derived the title of his ground breaking postcolonial pessimistic novel, ―The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, from the back of a truck. Indeed, as the Mammy Wagons speed across poorly maintained roads and careen around uncertain corners, their billboards offer readers and onlookers a canvas of desires, frustrations, and hopes for a better society.

Africa: See You, See Me takes its name from the artwork on a Mammy Wagon that I saw on a Nigerian road many years ago. The truck overtook the car in which I was riding, spurting a dark smelly smoke from its diesel fuel, and leaving us with the lasting image of two eyes framed by a paint-streaked map of Africa. The visual captured a continent in motion carried on the back of a truck in locomotion. Within the etching of Africa’s map, nestled the inscription ― ‘See You, See Me!’ Embodying the aspirations of the artist or whoever commissioned the work, the playful injunction posed Africa as a perennial work in progress, a continent framed by overlapping modernities, negotiating corners of history into uncertain futures. The truck wanted all who traveled Nigeria’s dangerous roads, to acknowledge each other’s presence and to toast our mutual daring in forging ahead. As it crossed us, it inspired the occupants of my more sedate vehicle to wonder how we, as Africans, see and imagine ourselves, as well as how we want others to see us. How do we overcome derogatory images of African bodies and bring forth new representations—at once critical and celebratory, artistic and documentary—to convey through the medium of Africans themselves, their own stories of agency and determination to reinvent their worlds?

In this context, this exhibition uses photographic practices in Africa to draw attention to the ways in which Africans represent themselves, and the growing influence of these self-representations in shaping general contemporary modes of photographing Africa. The exhibition focuses in part on the discursive quality of the photographs as they articulate migrant identities in cities, document social events, and produce symbolic and material interpretations of society and history. Some of the photographs also draw attention to the corporeal forms of the medium—its color, exposures, framing and composition, as well as the conventions for manipulating light, to re-tell the stories of Africa and Africans.

African photographers inherited templates for photographic representations framed by colonial archetypes of Africans as objects of a history in which they were present, but over which they had no control. This paradigm of objectification promoted a weird presence/absence formula. It began to change, however, as African photographers began to use their art to resist colonial anthropological frames of disempowerment.

Their works not only changed the pictorial frame but also developed a dialogic relationship with the fantasies and aspirations of their subjects. As Africans began to pose for their own photographs they seemed to say, “the camera must see me as I want to be seen.” There ensued a sometimes tension-fraught process of image-making, as African photographers engaged in critical dialogues with their subjects who strolled into their studios to commission portraits for their homes, families and communities. Similar tensions exist when African photographers frame their societies in ways that constitute at once critical and robust portraits of self-determination.

Africa: See You, See Me portrays the history of African photography and its influence on non-African imaginings of Africa and the African diaspora in all their diversity. Other prominent African curators such as Okwui Onwezor and Simon Njami have advanced our understanding of the origins, trajectories, complexities, and reception of image-making in Africa. This exhibition extends and continues their curatorial narratives by drawing attention to contemporary African re-framings of Africans in artistic and documentary photographs. Together, the photographs are texts of African subjectivities, archives of history and societies in the making, and methods for understanding how images contribute to emancipation. They critique the pathologies of postcolonial and neocolonial Africa by depicting the continent’s communities disentangling themselves from repressive nation states. While some of the photographs document the communities as tools of empowerment.

Africa boasts heterogeneous histories and cultures. Its diverse, often cosmopolitan locations are both nodes in migration networks, as well as entrepots for creating and preserving artistic traditions. These locations traverse barricades or remain hemmed in by boundaries defined by nineteenth and twentieth-century history: that of European colonization in Africa, the Second World War, and anticolonial nationalism. The euphoria of independence yielded to neocolonial dictatorships and questionable forms of governance that pitched African nation states against their citizens. Cynicism and distrust mounted as antagonistic parties vied for the continent’s minerals and commodities, whose very currency in global economies further dispossessed the people of the soil. It is these material realities of political repression and economic marginalization that contemporary African artists engage, by visualizing utopias of new beginnings.

Africa is more than a place. It is also many spaces of sensibility within and beyond the continent – in Europe, the Americas, and Asia -- that African artists pry open to install their presence. Their interventions in exhibition halls beyond the continent of their heritage have made a mark on recent photographs of Africa and Africans by non African photographers. Moreover, they have spurred intra-African, inter-textual dialogues about self-representation in Africa itself.

Africa: See You, See Me is organized in 3 parts. The first section features studio and other portraits of Africans seeking to write themselves into the urban landscapes to which they have migrated. It presents African photographers as they tamed, adapted and subverted the framing devices and photographic conventions bequeathed them by their former colonial masters as well as recent forms of photographic technologies. The black and white photographs by Okhai Ojeikere, Mamadou Mbaye and Malick Sidibe illustrate a tense dialogue between the photographer and the photographed as they collaborate in inscribing African spaces and selves into photographic texts. They signify fantasies of self-hood, using costume, make up, hairstyles, textile backdrops and theatrical poses to perform subjectivities of colonized places and postcolonial spaces. Other themes in this section include the structures of African cities, societies and communities in formation, and representations of looks outside the studio from photographers in every region of the continent. This part of the exhibition also includes photographs of some of Africa’s anti-colonial heroes who hoped for genuine liberation. Their images have been fragmented to symbolize the broken promises of African independence. Yet, rather than constituting a pessimistic retrospective, these pictures represent deconstruction as a prelude to reinvention in the 21st century.

The second section showcases early ethnographic portraits that imagined Africa as a wilderness peopled by Europe’s primitive ―Other. We have also used the strategy of re-reading these photographs to draw attention to them as objects within the history of photography. That history was itself a significant product of an industrialized world that defined not only progress, but also constructed those at the center and peripheries of such progress in certain ways.

The final section highlights contemporary photographs of Africa and Africans by non-African photographers who share a dialogic relationship with African artists. Thus, their work has expanded both African spheres of influence and multiplied the spaces in which Africans are photographed as subjects of history.

Like the Mammy Wagon I once saw on Nigerian roads, these photographs join works presented in the other sections, to tell Africans and the rest of the world: See You, See Me. Curator: Awam Amkpa Associate Curator: Madala Hilaire Produced by Africa.Cont, Lisboa, Portugal.

Artist Unknown, Colonial Photographs Circa 1900. Courtesy: Archive Collection of David Gelbard

SELF-REPRESENTATION IN AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND CINEMA

by Manthia Diawara

非洲摄影和电影的自我表现 文：曼西亚•戴阿瓦那（Manthia Diawara）

非洲摄影和电影的自我表现 文：曼西亚•戴阿瓦那（Ｍａｎｔｈｉａ Ｄｉａｗａｒａ） 一． 非洲黑白摄影和黑白电影 只要欣赏摄影集里面的照片，你就能看到经由静态相机定格的非洲走向现代的青年运动的脉络。每张相片，无论出自塞杜•凯塔（Ｓｅｙｄｏｕ Ｋéｉｔａ）、马利 克•塞迪伯（Ｍａｌｉｃｋ Ｓｉｄｉｂé）、萨缪尔•弗索（Ｓａｍｕｅｌ Ｆｏｓｓｏ ）或飞利浦•Ｋ•阿帕亚（Ｐｈｉｌｉｐ Ｋｗａｍｅ Ａｐａｇｙａ）之手，都充满力量、渴望、以及一种现代 主义的忧郁，这种忧伤透露着照片美的源泉和趣味。此外，特别是塞迪伯的作品，其主体看上去像在模仿西方Ｂ级片及杂志的演员及流行音乐明星。人物 的穿衣打扮风格—紧身衬衫，非洲黑人式蓬松卷发，喇叭裤和厚底松糕鞋—还有身体语言，都洋溢巴马科二十世纪六十和七十年代时髦青年的生活气息， 一幕幕生活片段充满电影味。照片刻意美化经营其周遭环境氛围，用上了各种各样的户外和室内道具，例如摩托车、电话、唱片、旋转台等，作为巴马科 流行文化时期的种种符号象征。人物占据了相片的中心位置，如同征服历史的荷里活英雄好汉。 我为发现这些照片和六十和七十年代的非洲电影之间并不存在强的联系而感到无比诧异。只有少数几部七十年代的影片确认我在此提到的现代非洲风格和 美学标准。如同塞迪伯的摄影作品，迪百利•迪欧普（Ｄｊｉｂｒｉｌ Ｄｉｏｐ Ｍａｍｂｅｔｙ）导演的《土狼之旅》（Ｔｏｏｋｉ Ｂｏｕｋｉ ，１９７５） 模仿西方Ｂ级电影以及法国新浪 潮电影的布景。《土狼之旅》在对青年人角色的描绘中，赋予了诗意的涵义，同样指示了黑白摄影中强调的自由和独立的象征。 苏莱曼•西塞（Ｓｏｕｌｅｙｍａｎｅ Ｃｉｓｓé）的电影作品《被强暴的少女》（Ｄｅｎ Ｍｕｓｏ ，１９７４）是另一部不可多得的独特影片，它呈现了电影与上世纪六七十年代的 非洲摄影艺术之间迷人的互文关系。《被强暴的少女》讲述了两个年轻人天宁（Ｔéｎｉｎ）和塞库（Ｓéｋｏｕ）在传统和现代间挣扎的故事。天宁的父亲代表 着传统贵族和富裕阶层，而塞库的家庭则出身贫寒。但由于以性开放为标志的现代年轻潮流文化，天宁和塞库却结合在一起，当年尚年青的歌手Ｓａｌｉｆ Ｋéｉｔａ以及巴马科超级铁路乐队的音乐，穿衣风格，还有摩托车，成了象征城市流动性的新标志。拍摄天宁的父母时，导演像是采用了塞杜•凯塔式的经 典巴马科人像摄影技巧，像凯塔在摄影室拍那些身穿宽大刺绣布布装长袍的男人、女人肖像照那样呈现人物，背景还有一幅红色的布帘。《被强暴的少女 》借用凯塔的人像摄影风格来表现传统的巴马科，还运用了塞迪伯风格形容新风尚和传统面临的挑战，呈现出美妙的反差，却又相得益彰。 天宁和塞库两人都是塞迪伯摄影集里活生生跳出来的人物。非洲卷发、长领紧身衬衫、厚底松糕鞋，塞库看上去就像个叛逆者，反抗巴马科代表的一切。 电影开始时，他辞去工作，成为扒手。除了满身的行头外，他是个彻头彻尾的花花公子，没有觉悟和意识，对生活全然不负责任，得过且过。电影里他换 了好几个女朋友。其中一幕在河滩拍摄的经典场面是纯马利克•塞迪伯风格，年青人穿着比基尼泳装，喝茶，玩乐，而离他们的不远处，塞库正在强奸天 宁。 天宁在影片中的形象就像我们从凯塔和塞迪伯照片中看到的美丽女人一样：她们的头发编成辫子或是满头非洲卷发，穿的是迷你裙或剪裁漂亮的连身裙。 耐人寻味的是，天宁是个缄默的哑巴，这象征妇女在非洲的父权环境中没有话语权。天宁怀孕后，父亲和塞库都拒绝接纳她。电影结尾时，她先纵火烧塞 库和新女友幽会的屋子，然后自杀。因此可以说，《被强暴的少女》这部电影使我们想象到塞迪伯相集里的年青人需要面对和应对的处境和故事。 借助凯塔和塞迪伯的表达技巧，通过传统和现代间的转切，影片向巴马科观众提出质询。天宁父母的镜头大多在室内拍摄，为塞杜•凯塔风格；而电影的 室外场景则表现了马利克•塞迪伯的巴马科。今天重温《被强暴的少女》，观众可以感受上世纪六七十年代的巴马科，如同马利克•塞迪伯的照片和塞杜• 凯塔及詹姆斯．布朗（Ｊａｍｅｓ Ｂｒｏｗｎ）的老歌一样，影片可以带你重温那些时代。仅仅为这个原因，《被强暴的少女》成为了巴马科一部值得膜拜的电影。

二．非洲摄影和电影的流变

虽然摄影和电影涉及不同的制作模式，需要不同的制作成本，但就表达方式而言，两者在美学上和政治上互为联系。与其它的表达方式如说书和雕塑不 同的是，它们都借助照相机／摄影机制造出同等逼真的幻像。所以，要探究表明非洲电影为何不追随《被强暴的少女》的模式，在此我们需要先对摄影和 电影这两种媒体在非洲的发展环境作个简短回顾。 摄影术和电影艺术皆由追寻原始和异国情调的欧洲探险家、殖民地行政官员、人类学者以及传教士带到非洲。因此，欧洲人创作的早期非洲照片和影片 大多将镜头聚焦裸体、部落图腾、宗教习俗及一夫多妻的非洲酋长，这实在发人深思。在这些纪实性的作品中，非洲人欠缺主体性和个人风格；他们往 往被作者以局外人的眼光具体化和限制。某程度来看，原始风格的照片和影片竭力维护保持欧洲人凌驾非洲人之上的（种族）优越感。 与摄影相比，非洲电影史较新。以马里为例，该国拥有甸贝利（Ｍｏｕｎｔａｇａ Ｄｅｍｂéｌé）、塞杜•凯塔等摄影师，他们早于二十世纪三四十年代已掌握了 摄影技艺。有人甚至指出，马里摄影艺术经历了两个黄金时代：一个是由塞杜•凯塔代表的五十年代，另一个为马利克•塞迪伯领军的六十年代，在此前 ，还没有任何马里导演摄制过哪怕一部正片。高昂的制作成本是非洲电影迟诞生的原因之一，另外一个原因是，（殖民统治者）担忧，掌握电影摄影机 的非洲人会颠覆殖民地秩序。 从马里这个举足轻重的例子，我们亦可以找到其它阻滞非洲电影发展的原因。自始至终，殖民时代摄影师的美学选择与电影导演的截然不同；此外，摄 影和电影的消费市场大相径庭。马里是块出产反映多贡人传统习俗和宇宙观的民族志电影沃土。法国导演如胡许（Ｊｅａｎ Ｒｏｕｃｈ） 、 Ｍａｒｃｅｌ Ｇｒｉａｕｌｅ等没有 感受到来自非洲同行的任何竞争，胡许等人不亦乐乎地投入拍摄住在原本部落住所的多贡人。他们舍弃城市人，宁愿表达原始的非洲文化，为非洲电影 生产建立起一种意识形态和美学，其影响深远，直到今天。 与此同时，摄影术在城市里发展起来，非洲摄影师越来越多，取代了欧洲摄影师。马里摄影师开始在首都巴马科、卡伊（Ｋａｙｅｓ）、塞古（Ｓｅｇｏｕ）以及 其它新兴城市开设照相馆，黑白照的出现迎合了新城市人口的现代需要。 因此，当电影（当时由欧洲人掌控并消费）的审美情趣还停留在原始和民族风情上时，摄影艺术已经在非洲摄影人手中发展流变，且拥有了一批非洲人 像消费者。换言之，电影陷进了“真正”的非洲传统语言怪圈，而另一边厢，非洲本土摄影师则忙于拍摄出生照和现代非洲人表达自己的格式化肖像照 。塞杜•凯塔的黑白摄影作品显示了主体人物的世界主义及其直面现代性的乐观主义。毕竟，人们离乡背井来到巴马科或卡伊，是为了成为转变中的世界 的英雄，他们最希望告诉世界的是，“我们成功了”。他们追求现代化；这就是他们穿上最漂亮的衣服，戴上首饰精心打扮好自己，以现代巴马科人的 身份象征来照相或拍摄的原因。

三． 寻找美学方向的非洲电影

仅仅在二十世纪六十年代―在许多非洲国家争取到独立后且在摄影机发明六十多年后―少数非洲人才可以制作属于自己的电影。一方面，他们突然被新 独立国家需要制作自己的影像的文化政策所鼓舞，另一方面，法国经济经济合作部（Ｆｒｅｎｃｈ Ｍｉｎｉｓｔèｒｅ ｄｅ ｌａ Ｃｏｏｐéｒａｔｉｏｎ）改变策略，支持非洲本土 人拍电影，这也推动非洲人摄制电影。 那时候，许多新独立国家的艺术政策都折射出欧洲马克思主义者及海外非洲裔知识分子拥护的艺术策略，这些人包括了沙特（Ｊｅａｎ－Ｐａｕｌ Ｓａｒｔｒｅ），艾梅 ．沙塞尔（Ａｉｍé Ｃéｓａｉｒｅ）和弗兰兹．法农（Ｆｒａｎｔｚ Ｆａｎｏｎ ）。他们主张把艺术与国家建设结合，他们相信艺术的真正功能应该是革命性的，而且要反 映人民所处的社会现实。用塞古•杜尔（Ｓéｋｏｕ Ｔｏｕｒé）的话来说就是，“国家有责任创办电影业，而电影应该突出革命中的积极因素，激励人民，使 他们做好准备迎接变化：一门泰然承担起教育责任、发挥出转型威力的电影艺术”（《文化变革》，Ｌａ Ｒéｖｏｌｕｔｉｏｎ Ｃｕｌｔｕｒｅｌｌｅ，１９６５，第３６５页）。 只要看看非洲电影之父乌斯曼•塞姆班（Ｓｅｍｂｅｎｅ Ｏｕｓｍａｎｅ）的作品，由《车夫》（Ｂｏｒｏｍ Ｓａｒｅｔ，１９６３）到《汇款单》（Ｍａｎｄａｂｉ，１９６８），我们可以发现这 些影片的美学特质都带着非洲独立国家社会主义文化策略的烙印：在故事叙述中，它们都因为强调社会转变而牺牲了对角色和剧情的营造。无论《车夫 》或《汇款单》，其主角均是普通人形象，为了反抗压迫他们的制度，他们充当了人民利益的牺牲者。事实上，两部影片皆透过其主角展开叙事：我们 不大认同《车夫》里面的马车夫，因为他对剥削他的制度熟视无睹；我们与他划清界线，转用一个布莱希特式（Ｂｒｅｃｈｔｉａｎ）说法，是因为他不起来反抗 和改变自己的社会环境。《汇款单》的主角邓（Ｅｌｈａｄｊ Ｄｉｅｎｇ）同样令我们愤怒，我们像恼怒一味剥削他的制度和人般恼怒他。塞姆班使观众抗拒邓的 浮夸作风，他只不过是个纸老虎、大男子主义者、反动分子。 塞姆班是个只沉迷于理想化现实的导演－在其电影叙事中，这种现实的具体表现是公正及民主原则，在他手中，电影成为了制造社会转变和革命的舞台 的工具，而塑造英雄的集体比英雄本身还重要。塞姆班的非洲主题电影并没有高调、模拟性的情节，也没有史诗式的故事。他在诸如《汇款单》、《诅 咒》（Ｘａｌａ，１９７４）及《塞内加尔的独立》（ Ｃｅｄｄｏ，１９７８）等影片中，把受压迫的大众捧为“英雄”， 彷如在剥夺非洲观众受落而又习惯了的传统说书 艺术以及西方流行电影艺术所具备的故事性趣味。因此明明白白的是，塞姆班提倡的革新性电影－理想主义，反殖民主义和反对古旧过时的非洲传统习 俗－与恩克鲁玛（Ｋｗａｍｅ Ｎｋｒｕｍａｈ）、卢蒙巴（Ｐａｔｒｉｃｅ Ｌｕｍｕｍｂａ）及法农等人建立的泛非洲主义构想更有共鸣，但却疏离了人们的现实生活。因此从美学 角度来看，由于描绘像邓般的人物，塞姆班电影疏远了大多数的非洲观众。邓一方面代表了传统权贵，是个滑稽人物、煽动家；另一方面，他象征着受 过教育的同层次非洲人，可鄙可怜。

若从法国经济合作部制作的电影探索非洲电影美学，我们会发现经济合作部影片竭尽所能地对抗塞姆班提倡的布莱希特式后现代电影语言。１９６３年，经济 合作部设立电影局（Ｂｕｒｅａｕ ｄｕ Ｃｉｎéｍａ），由德布西（Ｊｅａｎ－Ｒｅｎé Ｄéｂｒｉｘ）出任局长。很快，电影局成为了非洲电影制作的最大支持者，提供给很多 说法语非洲人圆导演梦的第一个黄金机会。早在１９７５年，１８５部非洲电影，包括短片和长片，在非洲法语区制成，其中五分之四的影片摄制由电影局提供 财政或技术援助。这使得德布西沾沾自喜的吹嘘，“用路易•马勒（Ｌｏｕｉｓ Ｍａｌｌｅ）的话来说，任何非洲导演，只要他认为自己‘肚里有个电影构思’，都 可以在电影局找到自由拍摄电影的方法（摘自马西亚•代沃瓦的著作《非洲电影：政治与文化》第２６页，印第安纳州大学出版社，１９９２）。 德布西形容自己是阿贝尔•冈斯（Ａｂｅｌ Ｇａｎｃｅ）的学生，他希望开创由非洲人主导创作的新电影，非洲新电影将有别于西方的电影语汇。在他看来，西方 电影人已经走进了死胡同，因为他们让修辞和辩证风格充斥电影，从而使电影艺术服从于笛卡儿哲学与文学和戏剧的认知框框。德布西认为非洲电影人的 参与可以拯救电影，恢复其“魔力”、“魅力”和“诗意”，他陶醉于此种观念，所以他就把握新职位带来的机遇，成为了这股新电影的缔造者。

事实上，电影局及法国政治和文化机构在资助部分最知名的非洲导演制作影片的同时，也使这些导演陷入僵化的自我表达方式，它对西方把非洲当做蛮荒 之地的想象加以肯定。从好处想的话，一些非洲电影如《光》（Ｙｅｅｌｅｎ，１９８７，导演：

苏莱曼•西塞）

以及《天问》（Ｔｉｌａｉ，１９９０，导演：屋德瑞古

Ｉｄｒｉｓｓａ Ｏｕｅｄｒａｏｇｏ）等，尝试纠正欧洲人对非洲的不当表达，却在影片叙事中认同追求人类学性质的美学。批判者因而有充分理由批评他们在影片里滥用 非洲黑人的特征和原始主义。慢节奏的叙事风格、大量长镜头和远景―牺牲关乎角色心理和个性的动态剪辑―也使人把这些非洲电影与人种志电影相提并 论。 从坏处着眼，德布西所谓的此类特具“魔力”、“魅力”的电影，简直可打进三流人类学电影的行列，它们强化非洲悲情主义这些陈腔老调，又或是使人 深信非洲人没有能力适应现代世界。１９６８年，塞姆班在他的一篇著名声明中指出，胡许的摄影机如同昆虫般猎影非洲人（（摘自《非洲电影》第１７４页， １９９２版）。直至今天，使欧洲电视和电影节宽怀以待的仍然是这样的一些非洲导演－他们取代昆虫学家和人类学家，用电影镜头表现被摒弃于人类历史以 外如昆虫般的、陷进非洲悲情主义的非洲人。 无论如何，过去数十年来于法国或由电视频道例如Ａｒｔｅ制作的非洲电影，批判新殖民主义和帝国主义的塞姆班式电影语言已全然从其语法中被撇除。但这 并不意味着非洲人好像不再需要忧虑发展落后和由世界银行和国际货币基金会等金融机构的结构性调整所引发的地区冲突。 讽刺的是，今天的非洲观众是对非洲电影最为陌生的一群。他们不能认同那些由非专业演员演绎的失语、被去势的角色。当非洲电影陷入这种非洲悲情主 义不能自拔时，我们会疑问为什么欧洲影评人和制作人会不断地给被其认为是“真正”非洲的非洲影片授予奖项和尽情的赞誉。

六． 总结

也许，对疏离非洲观众的非洲法语电影显现的宗主霸权，最积极的抗衡来自新兴的英语录像作品。这也令我得以重拾有关电影与非洲摄影艺术之间关系的 探讨。像塞杜•凯塔、马利克•塞迪伯、萨缪尔•弗索、飞利浦•Ｋ•阿帕亚等摄影师的黑白照片一样，尼日利亚录像渲染非洲中产阶级的渴望和恐惧。这些 录像片把漂亮的住宅现于观众眼前，它们都标配豪华客厅、电冰箱、电视机、电话和汽车。故事大都围绕爱与背叛，加上宗教信仰力量与贪婪和金钱相抗 衡等桥段。录像反映的此种重要的美学选择，与非洲法语电影仅迎合欧洲人的意图反差强烈。 从我个人观点出发，我觉得我们也必须谨慎，不可对尼日利亚录像予以不加批评的全盘肯定。跟法语电影般，它们同样包含原始主义成分。其故事发展往 往僵持于过时或捏造的传统风俗中。此外，它们尚未达到像塞杜•凯塔、马利克•塞迪伯等辈的黑白摄影作品在技巧和美学上的至善至美。大多数录像片 的摄影和剪接水准低，技巧有限。但是，尽管有种种瑕疵，这些录像片依然吸引观众，因为它们讲述的故事，其角色身处的各式情形人人都能认同和产生 共鸣。如同前辈摄影大师般，尼日利亚录像作品表现的非洲人是自己历史的主人，是世界主义者，也是普世世界中的演员。这些正正是非洲法语电影所欠 缺的。

我相信尼日利亚录像和非洲法语电影皆可从非洲黑白摄影的经典时代中学到些什么。一方面，谈到美学，所有泛泛普遍性都有地方区别。早期非洲摄影的 成功建基于这样一个事实：每一位摄影师都调适其照相机，使它迎合本国人口味和环境的意趣。这批摄影师并不满足于摄影拥有全球性语言这一概念－而 非洲法语电影摄制者颇喜欢唱这个电影论调；与此相反，他们创造了摄影的黑色美学。

像遍布巴马科与科托努（Ｃｏｔｏｎｏｕ）的裁缝和理发师那样，这些摄影师之所以在其社区里大受欢迎，是因为他们给予了消费者最好的产品。如果今天世界 发现了塞杜•凯塔，那是因为他首先是为了巴马科市民而使自己的摄影艺术更臻完美。我相信，尼日利亚录像制作人也同样深深意识到其观众的技术和审 美要求，并且知道他们必须努力工作，以提升到足以生存下去的标准。事实上，作为大众消费产品，电影绝对不可以忽略观众。

我曾和非洲电影人有过激烈争论，他们驳斥上述观点为过分简单化。对于他们，问题是错综复杂的，因为非洲电影院被美国及功夫电影殖民，使得非洲电 影占的市场份额很少。他们争辩说，只要非洲还不存在自己的制作资源—如果没有非洲投资人投资电影，他们就不得不遵从法国和欧洲文化机构的游戏规 则。非洲电影摄制人不但将戛纳和柏林电影节看作为法国和德国的，也视之为诠释电影语言的国际场合。对他们而言，生存并不取决于非洲观众，而是取 决于这些电影节的主办者及欧洲电视台的节目编排人。

旅居巴黎的一些非州裔电影人甚至怀疑近期尼日利亚录像在欧美大获成功，乃种族主义在背后推波助澜；他们认为这是在开历史倒车以及将非洲电影再次 隔离的阴谋论。在欧美对非洲录像的一片赞誉声中，他们嗅到了家长作风，它武断地认为旅居西方电影人制作的电影和录像无艺术价值。也许，就制作和 发行手段来说，这些持批判眼光的非洲电影人的见解站得住脚。然而，黑白摄影这种模式的成功又该当何论？

Malik Sidibe

kklls

Malik Sidibe

SELF-REPRESENTATION IN AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND CINEMA

by Manthia Diawara I. African Photography and Cinema in Black and White As I recently paged through a voluminous book, Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography (Revue Noire, 1988), I could not help but think about the esthetic links between still photography and film in Africa.

A crucial question we must ask ourselves therefore is what happened when Africans got hold of still and motion picture cameras to represent themselves? Did they inherit the stereotypes of Africans forged by Europeans, or try to find a new language? There are esthetic links between African photography and film that, if explored, will yield a new appreciation of both mediums in Africa. It is my aim here to show that black and white photography in Africa provides a powerful metaphor for pursuing the esthetic signifiers in African cinema.

Looking at the photographs in the anthology, one can see the African youth movement toward modernity framed by the still camera. Each photograph by Seydou Kéita, Malick Sidibé, Samuel Fosso and Philip Kwame Apagya is filled with energy, desires, and a kind of modernist melancholia that constitute its esthetic source and pleasure. Furthermore, the subjects in Sidibé’s work in particular seem to imitate actors and pop music stars from B-movies and magazines from the West. The dress styles—tight shirts, Afro-hair, bell bottom pants and platform shoes—and the body languages of the characters are filled with cinematic vignettes of the life of hip youngsters in Bamako in the 1960s and 1970s. The mise-en-scene is perfected, with outdoor and studio props like motorcycles, telephones, records and turntables that are signifiers of the pop culture period in Bamako. The characters occupy the center of the photographs like Hollywood heroes and individuals who have conquered history.

My biggest surprise is that I found no strong continuity between these photographs and the African cinema coming out in the 1960s and 1970s. Only a handful of films in the seventies gave a nod to the modern African style and esthetics I have referred to here. Tooki Bouki, (1975) by Djibril Diop Mambety, like Sidibé’s photographs, borrows from the mise-en-scene of the Western and B-movies, as well as from the French Nouvelle Vague. The poetic connotations in the representation of the youth in Tooki Bouki signal to the same symbols of freedom and independence emphasized in the black and white photographs. y of the 1960s and 1970s in Africa. Den Muso tells the story of two young people—Ténin and Sékoucaught in the struggle between tradition and modernity. Ténin’s father represents traditional nobility and wealth, while Sékou’s family is from a poor background. But Ténin and Sékou are united through the modern youth culture as signified by free sex, the music of a young Salif Kéita and the Super Rail Band of Bamako, the dress styles, and the motorcycles that have become the new symbols of mobility in the city.

Ténin’s parents are filmed like the studio portraits of the men and women in Seydou Kéita’s classic portraits of the Bamakois clad in their embroidered grand boubous, with a red curtain in the background. The recourse to Kéita’s style of portraiture to represent traditional Bamako contrasts nicely with the use of Sidibé’s style to connote the new and the challenge to tradition.

Both Sékou and Ténin are characters straight out of a Sidibé photo album. In his Afro-hair, tight shirts with long collars, and platform shoes, Sékou looks like a rebel against all that Bamako represents. He quits his job in the beginning of the film and becomes a pickpocket. He is a playboy without a conscience or a commitment to anything in life, except for the clothes he wears. He changes girlfriends several times in the film.

In one classic scene ă la Malick Sidibé, shot at the beach by the river, the youth, dressed in their bikinis, drink tea and play while Sékou rapes Ténin not too far from them.

Ténin is portrayed like the beautiful women we see in both the photographs of Kéita and Sidibé—with their hair braided or in Afros, and wearing mini-skirts or nicely tailored dresses. Interestingly, Tenin is mute which signifies the voicelessness of women in a patriarchal African setting. When she becomes pregnant, she is rejected by both her father and Sékou. At the end of the film, she sets fire to a house with Sékou and his new lover inside, and kills herself. Den Muso thus gives us an idea of the situations and stories that the youth in Sidibé’s albums might have been dealing with.

The film interpellates the Bamakois spectators by inter-cutting between tradition and modernity through the representational techniques of Kéita and Sidibé. The scenes with Ténin’s parents are mostly shot inside—in the style of Seydou Kéita—while the cinematography outside reveals Malick Sidibé’ Bamako.

Seeing Den Muso today makes the spectator relive the Bamako of the 1960s and 1970s as the photographs of Malick Sidibé and the old songs of Salif Kéita and James Brown are able to do. For that reason alone, it has become a cult film to treasure in Bamako.

Den Muso, (1974) by Souleymane Cissé, is another film with fascinating intertextual connections to the photography of the 1960s and 1970s in Africa. Den Muso tells the story of two young people—Ténin and Sékou—caught in the struggle between tradition and modernity. Ténin’s father represents traditional nobility and wealth, while Sékou’s family is from a poor background. But Ténin and Sékou are united through the modern youth culture as signified by free sex, the music of a young Salif Kéita and the Super Rail Band of Bamako, the dress styles, and the motorcycles that have become the new symbols of mobility in the city.

Ténin’s parents are filmed like the studio portraits of the men and women in Seydou Kéita’s classic portraits of the Bamakois clad in their embroidered grand boubous, with a red curtain in the background. The recourse to Kéita’s style of portraiture to represent traditional Bamako contrasts nicely with the use of Sidibé’s style to connote the new and the challenge to tradition.

Both Sékou and Ténin are characters straight out of a Sidibé photo album. In his Afro-hair, tight shirts with long collars, and platform shoes, Sékou looks like a rebel against all that Bamako represents. He quits his job in the beginning of the film and becomes a pickpocket. He is a playboy without a conscience or a commitment to anything in life, except for the clothes he wears. He changes girlfriends several times in the film.

In one classic scene ă la Malick Sidibé, shot at the beach by the river, the youth, dressed in their bikinis, drink tea and play while Sékou rapes Ténin not too far from them.

Ténin is portrayed like the beautiful women we see in both the photographs of Kéita and Sidibé—with their hair braided or in Afros, and wearing mini-skirts or nicely tailored dresses. Interestingly, Tenin is mute which signifies the voicelessness of women in a patriarchal African setting. When she becomes pregnant, she is rejected by both her father and Sékou. At the end of the film, she sets fire to a house with Sékou and his new lover inside, and kills herself. Den Muso thus gives us an idea of the situations and stories that the youth in Sidibé’s albums might have been dealing with.

The film interpellates the Bamakois spectators by inter-cutting between tradition and modernity through the representational techniques of Kéita and Sidibé. The scenes with Ténin’s parents are mostly shot inside—in the style of Seydou Kéita—while the cinematography outside reveals Malick Sidibé’ Bamako.

Seeing Den Muso today makes the spectator relive the Bamako of the 1960s and 1970s as the photographs of Malick Sidibé and the old songs of Salif Kéita and James Brown are able to do. For that reason alone, it has become a cult film to treasure in Bamako.

II. The Evolution of Photography and Film in Africa Though photography and film follow different modes of production and entail different costs, they are related esthetically and politically as far as representation is concerned. They share the same illusion of verisimilitude provided by the camera which set them apart from other modes of representations such as oral storytelling and sculpture. A brief overview of the circumstances in which the two mediums developed in Africa is therefore required here to show why other African films did not follow the example in Den Muso.

Both photography and film were introduced in Africa by European explorers, colonial administrators, anthropologists and missionaries in search of the primitive and the exotic. It is revealing therefore that the early photographs and films of Africans by Europeans were concerned with documenting nudity, tribal marks, religious customs, and polygamous African chiefs. The Africans in these documentaries lack subjectivity and personal style; they are reified and framed by an outsider’s gaze. In a sense, primitive photography and film were interested in asserting and maintaining the superiority of the European over the African.

The history of African cinema is recent compared to that of its photography. To take the specific case of Mali, for example, there were photographers such as Mountaga Dembélé and Seydou Kéita who had mastered their craft as early as the 1930s and 1940s. One might even say that Malian photography had achieved two golden ages—one with Seydou Kéita in the 1950s and the other spearheaded by Malick Sidibé in the 1960s—before there was even one feature film produced by a Malian director. The cost of film was one reason for the delay in the birth of African cinema. Another reason was the fear that an African with a movie camera would subvert the colonial order of things.

The case of Mali is significant for other reasons as well. From the beginning the esthetic choices of photographers were different from those of filmmakers in the colonial era; furthermore the markets in which the art was consumed were in a complete opposition to each other. Mali was a fertile ground for French ethnographic films on the tradition and cosmology of the Dogons.

French filmmakers like Jean Rouch and Marcel Griaule had no competition from African directors while the former were busy filming the Dogons in their authentic tribal dwellings. Their desire to privilege primitive African cultures at the expense of those lived in the urban setting cemented an ideology and esthetic of filmmaking in Africa that is still influential.

Photography meanwhile was evolving in the cities, with African photographers increasingly replacing their European counterparts. Malian photographers were opening studios in Bamako, Kayes, Segou, and other emerging cities where the black and white photographs coincided with the modern desires of new population.

So, while the esthetics of film—in the hands of Europeans and for a European consumptionremained primitive and ethnographic, the art of photography evolved with African cameramen and consumers of African images. In other words, film was stuck in an “authentic” African traditional language which could be opposed to European modernity, while the photographers where busy documenting the birth and stylized expressions of modern Africans. A look at the black and white photographs of Seydou Kéita reveals the cosmopolitanism of the subjects, as well as their optimism vis-à-vis modernity. After all, the people who left the rural areas to come to Bamako or Kayes to become new heroes or heroines in a changing world wanted above all to show the world that they had succeeded. They were searching for modernity; that was the reason why they put on their best clothes and jewelry to be photographed and captured on film as symbols of modern Bamakois identities.

III. African Cinema in Search of an Esthetics It was only in the 1960s—after many countries had won their independence, and more than sixty years after the invention of the movie camera—that a few Africans were able to make their own films. They were suddenly encouraged on the one hand by the cultural policies of newly independent countries that needed to produce their own images, and on the other by the French Ministère de la Coopération that had reversed its policy so as to support Africans to make films.

At that time, the artistic policies of many of the newly independent countries mirrored those espoused by European Marxist and African Diaspora intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon. They embedded art in the project of nation building and believed that its true function was to be revolutionary and to reflect the social reality of the people. To quote Sékou Touré, “it is the responsibility of the State to create a cinema which, in turn, emphasizes the positive things in the revolution in order to motivate people and prepare them for change—a cinema which is unabashed about its educational role, and its power of transformation,” (La Révolution Culturelle, 1965, p. 365).

A look at Sembene Ousmane’s films—from Borom Saret (1963), to Mandabi (1968)—reveals that they derived their esthetic resource from the socialist cultural policies of African independences, and that they emphasized a social transformation in the story at the expense of characterization and plot construction. In both Borom Saret and Mandabi, the main characters are anti-heroes who are sacrificed to the need of the people to rise against the system that is oppressing them.

In fact, the narratives of both films enfold against their protagonists: we identify less with the cart driver in Borom Saret because he remains blind to the system that exploit him; we take our distance from him, to paraphrase a Brechtian expression, because of his failure to rise up and change his social environment. In Mandabi, too, we are as angry with Elhadj Dieng, the main character, as we are with the system and the people who are bent on robbing him. Sembene positions the spectator to reject the pompous attitude of Elhadj Dieng, who is, after all, nothing but a paper tiger, a sexist pig, and a reactionary.

Mamadou M’baye

J. D. Ojeikere

For Sembene, who is only interested in an ideal reality—a reality which is symbolized by justice and democratic principles in his narratives—film becomes a tool for social transformation and revolutionary grandstanding, and the hero turns out as less important than the group that shapes him. There are no high mimetic stories or epic narratives in Sembene’s Africa. By adopting the oppressed masses as the “heroes” in such films as Mandabi, Xala (1974) and Ceddo (1978), Sembene seems to be robbing the African spectators of the narrative pleasure that they are so accustomed to in the art of traditional oral storytelling and popular Western cinema. Clearly therefore, the revolutionary cinema that Sembene is proposing—idealist, anti-colonialist and against “archaic” African traditions—finds its echo more in the Utopia of Pan-Africanism as theorized by men like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Fanon than in the reality of the people.

Aesthetically speaking, it is therefore fair to say that the Sembenian cinema alienates the majority of African spectators by depicting men like Elhadj Dieng, who symbolized traditional nobility, as caricatures and demagogues, on the one hand, and literate Africans as assimilés and worthless, on the other hand.

When we turn to the input of the French Ministère de la Coopération for esthetic consideration in African cinema, we find that it made every effort to counter the Brechtian film language proposed by Sembene. The Bureau du Cinéma was created at the Coopération in 1963, with Jean-René Débrix as its director. It soon became the most important source for African film production, providing many Francophone Africans with the first opportunity to realize their dreams as filmmakers. As early as 1975, 185 films—shorts and features—were made in Francophone Africa, four fifths of which were produced with the financial and technical help of the Bureau that prompted Débrix to brag that “any African director who thinks, as Louis Malle puts it, that he ‘has a film in his stomach,’ can find the means to make that film in freedom at Bureau du cinema” (see Diawara, African Cinema: Politics and Culture, Indiana University Press, 1992, p.26).

Débrix, who described himself as a student of Abel Gance, wanted to be at the origin of a new cinema created by Africans and distinct from Western film language. For him, Western filmmakers had reached an impasse because they allowed rhetorical and dialectical styles to take over their films, subjecting the art of cinema thus to Cartesianism and to the precepts of literature and theater. Under the spell of a notion that an African contribution would save cinema by restoring to it “sorcery,” “magic,” and “poetry,” Débrix seized the opportunity offered him by his new job to become the architect of this new cinema.

The reality is that while the Bureau and other French political and cultural institutions enabled some of the best known African directors to make films, they also trapped these directors into a self-representation that remains reassuring to the Western imagination of Africa as primitive. At best, African films like Yeelen, (1987, by Souleymane Cissé), and Tilai, (1990, by Idrissa Ouedraogo), by attempting to correct European representations of Africa, have legitimized the search for anthropological esthetics in their narratives. Critics are justified therefore to point to the appropriation of Négritude and primitivism in these films. The slow narrative pace, the abundance of long takes, and long shots—at the expense of a dynamic editing for character psychology and individualism—also link these African films to ethnographic cinema.

At their worst, what Débrix calls “magic” and “sorcery” in this kind of film can simply be dismissed as bad anthropological cinema which reinforces the stereotypical themes of Afro-pessimism, or Africans’ lack of capacity to adjust to the modern world. In 1968, in a celebrated statement, Sembene argued that Rouch’s camera depicts Africans as insects. (See African Cinema, 1992, p. 174). Still today, what reassures European television and film festivals are African directors taking the place of the entomologist/anthropologist, and showing Africans like insects caught outside of human history and trapped in Afro-pessimism.

At any rate, the Sembenian film language which critiques neo-colonialism and imperialism has completely disappeared from the grammar of African cinema produced in France or by television channels like Arte in the last decades. It is not as if Africans no longer need to worry about underdevelopment and regional conflicts as induced by the structural adjustments of such financial institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Ironically Africans are the audiences most alienated from African cinema today. They fail to identify with characters that are inarticulate, disempowered individuals and portrayed by non-professional actors. With African cinema caught in this kind of Afro-pessimism, one wonders why European critics and producers continue to bestow awards and lavish praise upon the films, which are considered “authentically” African.

IV. Conclusion Perhaps one positive reaction to the hegemony of a Francophone African cinema out of touch with its audience is the emergence of Anglophone videos. This also brings me back to my discussion of the links between cinema and African photography. Like the black and white photographs of Seydou Kéita, Malick Sidibé, Samuel Fosso and Philip Kwame Apagya, the Nigerian videos are colored with the desires and fears of the African middle classes. The videos reveal beautiful houses with lush living rooms, refrigerators, television sets, telephones and cars. The narratives often revolve around love, betrayal, and the power of religious faith versus greed and money. Most importantly, the videos, like the photographs, address Africans as their primary audience. This crucial esthetic choice reflected in the videos contrasts sharply with Francophone cinema’s intention to address only Europeans.

Personally, I feel that we have to be careful about an uncritical endorsement of Nigerian videos too. Like the Francophone films, they also contain their share of primitivism. Their stories are often trapped in outdated or invented traditions. Furthermore, they have not yet achieved the technical and esthetic perfection of the black and white photographs of Seydou Kéita and Malick Sidibé. Most of the videos are limited in terms of poor shooting and editing. But in spite of their imperfections, the videos draw audiences because they tell stories with characters who are involved in situations that everybody can identify with. Like the photographs, the videos show Africans as agents of their own history, as cosmopolitan figures, and as actors in the global world—something that is lacking in Francophone cinema.

I believe that both Nigerian videos and Francophone cinema can learn a few things from the classic era of African black and white photography. For one thing, when it comes to esthetics, every universalism has a local basis. The early success of photography in Africa was grounded in the fact that each photographer had adjusted his camera to the taste of his people and environment.

The African photographer did not content himself with the notion that photography has a universal language—as Francophone filmmakers are fond of saying about film; rather they created a black esthetic of photography.

The photographers, like the tailors and barbers who are popular from Bamako to Cotonou, succeeded in their communities because they provided consumers with the best products. If the world is discovering Seydou Kéita today, it is because he perfected his art for the Bamakois first.

I believe that the Nigerian video makers too are well aware of the technical and esthetic requirements of their audience, and realize that they must work hard to rise to their level to survive. The fact is that, as a mass consumer product, no cinema can afford to ignore its audience.

I have had heated debates with African filmmakers who refute this argument as simplistic. For them, the problem is complex because African movie theaters are colonized by American and Kung Fu films which leave a very small market share for African films. They argue that they have to play the game of French and European institutions as long as there are no alternative production facilities in Africa—as long as there are no Africans to invest in film. The African filmmakers see festivals like Cannes and Berlin not as French or German, but as universal sites for film language. For them, survival depends not on African audiences, but on the taste of the organizers of these festivals and programmers of European television.

Some African filmmakers in Paris even suspect that racism is behind the recent success of Nigerian videos in Europe and America, which they argue is related to the desire to turn back the wheel and to once again ghettoize Africa cinema. They see paternalism in European and American praise of African videos that would have no artistic merit if they were made by filmmakers in the West. Perhaps these critical African filmmakers have a point insofar as the politics of production and distribution is concerned. But how about black and white photography as a model?

Malik Nejmi

Michael Tsegaye

The Last Interview: Seydou Keita

by Lydie Diakhate

Self-portrait, 1949 silver gelatin print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches Image: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

最后的访谈﹕塞杜•凯塔 (Seydou Keita) 文：莉迪•迪亚卡特 (Lydie Diakhate)

最后的访谈﹕塞杜•凯塔 （Ｓｅｙｄｏｕ Ｋｅｉｔａ） 文：莉迪•迪亚卡特（Ｌｙｄｉｅ Ｄｉａｋｈａｔｅ） 塞杜•凯塔（Ｓｅｙｄｏｕ Ｋｅｉｔａ）是一位哲人，也是一位亲切的诗人。他以周详细致的安排，把每一位摄影模特儿美丽动人的一面呈现于照片里。这不是刻意经 营的，但却记录了巴马科市（Ｂａｍａｋｏ）在获得自主之前的历史。他的照片没有一张是偶然之作，全部都经过他亲自构图，倾注了无限的情感。每一个影像都 带出一个家常话题，这些话题跟１９３５至１９６５年期间的萨赫勒地区（Ｓａｈｅｌ）社会和外面世界，产生共鸣。他是优秀艺术家群的一员，跟其他艺术家一起为他 們的時代作见证。

虽然塞杜•凯塔（Ｓｅｙｄｏｕ Ｋｅｉｔａ）的作品是细致和粗野的混合体，但不时予人朴实无华的感觉。所有在照片里的东西都充满感性，来得慷慨大方。他的作品 令人想起摄影家纳达尔（Ｎａｄａｒ）（１）对摄影的追求，按照纳达尔所说，是要“寻找那一刻的理解，使你与在座的拍摄对象产生接触，对拍摄对象有大致的了 解，继而去认识那人的习性、信念和性格。这样便可成功拍下一张亲切的肖像照”。塞杜•凯塔的作品还让人回想起夏悫影楼（Ｈａｒｃｏｕｒｔ ｓｔｕｄｉｏ）（２）拍摄 的肖像照。在１８３０－１８６０年期间，巴黎艺术界、政治和国际圈子的人，无一不往那影楼拍照留念。在１９５７年，罗兰•巴特（Ｒｏｌａｎｄ Ｂａｒｔｈｅｓ） （３）写下：“在 法国，除非夏悫影楼曾为你拍照，否则你算不上什么重要人物”，只有透过照片这媒介，“你才会重新发现你那能超越时间的本质”。塞杜•凯塔的顾客 ，在重新发现他们那本质的同时，在不知不觉间变成永恒，成为巴马科历史传奇的一环。各类的人物，如母亲、父亲、夫妇、儿子、女儿、兄弟、姊妹、 年青人、长者，纷纷来到塞杜•凯塔的照相馆拍照。他们树立出各式发型或束起辫子，用饰物衬托，穿上正规的布布装（ｂｏｕｂｏｕ）或别致的套装，为的是要 配合拍攝环境。透过塞杜•凯塔的构图安排，这些求照者在照片里显得高雅脱俗，摆弄姿势的过程变成了一项仪式。

塞杜•凯塔以新的艺术表现手法、新的方式，把各种人物改头换面。在这里，有三种的情感基础，让人物的现实和梦想呈现于人前。首先，塞杜•凯塔追求 永恒不变的完美。身为摄影师的他，认为拍摄对象在摄影机面前，必须尽其所能，努力做到最好。其次，拍摄对象希望他们的梦想成真。他们坐下来等待 拍照，在这段就坐的时间里，他们成为独一无二的生命体，享受一段幸福的时光。在非洲社会里，实在难以想象能享有这种厚待。当摄影师按下快门，把 人物时间定格下来，拍摄对象那超越时空的心底梦想，随即于眼前实现。最后一种情感基础，来自巴马科。当这城市以它的祖传文化和能力，去消化和吸 收外在世界带来的影响，籍以证明它的真实性时，便形成一种情感动力。

当观众跟塞杜•凯塔的肖像照面对面相遇时，两者之间造就一段跨越国界、打破文化界限的亲切对话。照片里人和人之间的肢体动作，跟对话内容产生共 鸣。照片里人们的各种优美姿态，不论是一个紧抱、拥抱、双手合十或是典雅地摆放于别人的肩膀或臂膀上，都是这段对话的永恒居所。

这些照片里的人物和道具，訴說當年马里社会的故事，道出社会拥有的抱负和梦想。美丽和优雅充斥着照片的每一角落，宽阔长袍成褶状垂下，布满图案 的印染布是背景幕。在观众眼里，它们不期然产生一种律动。置放在拍摄对象四周的物品，例如收音机、汽车或摩托车，亦绝非装饰品而已。它们能改变 顷刻间的现实，為传统与现代结合的空间，披上新的面纱。透过塞杜•凯塔（的作品，我们看到马里社会正踏上与整个世界接轨的道路。

塞杜•凯塔带着慷慨之心，以谦逊的态度，耗尽一生时间，钻研他钟情的摄影艺术。也许，当他参与１９９３年在法国鲁昂市（Ｒｏｕｅｎ）举行的摄影会议，应算是他 国际摄影生涯的起步点，而他在家乡巴马科举办的首次个展，是在１９９５年的摄影会议举行期间进行。由于他的同胞一般对摄影和艺术都提不起兴趣，塞杜•凯 塔的艺术和专业成就，在其人生晚期才获公认，赢得人们的赞许。 我与塞杜•凯塔的第一次碰面，是在１９９５年他的一个摄影作品展上。那个摄影作品展在巴黎近郊的蒙特勒伊镇上举行，该镇被称作马里继巴马科之后的第二首 都。我马上就为塞杜•凯塔的为人和艺术才华所倾倒。我们最后的一次交谈是在２００１年的夏天里。现在，塞杜•凯塔已经离我们而去，在我们缅怀的影像中继 续他的旅程。让我们在他的话语、故事和生活中再次寻找他的身影吧。 莉迪•迪亚卡特（Ｌｙｄｉｅ Ｄｉａｋｈａｔｅ，下称：ＬＤ）： 你是怎样成为一名摄影师的？ 塞杜•凯塔： １９３５年，我叔叔从塞内加尔回来的时候，给我捎了个箱式照相机，６Ｘ９画幅的。那时，我是个橱柜木匠，和我父亲一齐做家具。有了这个小相机后 ，我开始用它来拍其他的学徒。我从Ｐｉｅｒｒｅ Ｇａｌｕｅｔ的商店买来摄影耗材。Ｐｉｅｒｒｅ Ｇａｌｕｅｔ是个欧洲人。有一天，他问我为什么不自己冲晒照片，反正有相关的 耗材卖。于是我买来了一瓶显影剂和一瓶定影剂，开始在家里自己冲晒照片。我的所有小照片都是自己冲晒的。那时我做的是６Ｘ９画幅的照片。花了两年的时 间，我才成功做出那样的照片。我做的第一张照片一塌糊涂，上面的人物看起来像骨架似的。那时我大概１３岁。看着那些没有成形的照片，我伤心极了。到 我终于能冲晒出好的人物肖像照时，我买了台９Ｘ１２画幅的干板照相机。随后１９４９年的时候，我租了个房间。也就是在那个房间里，我做出了最好的照片。我 用菲林匣来晒照片，晒得非常的快。我１小时至少可以晒２０张照片。人们开始在镇上看到我的照片。之后，他们来让我把地址写到他们的照片上去。从那以后 ，我才开始认真地投入到摄影工作中去。我父亲看到这样就对我说：“你那儿有两个房间；你应该把它们用作摄影室。” ＬＤ：所以你家从没阻止你成为摄影师？那时摄影可不是一个平常的行当。 塞杜•凯塔： 父亲一直很支持我。我从没上过摄影班；我从没学过摄影，也没到学校里上过课。我就是那样学会的，在做的过程中学会的。没办法，我靠它吃 饭。它可是我养家糊口的工具。他们没有选择，就随了我。我只拍人物肖像照、证件照、家庭照和纪念照。拍一张８Ｘ１２相幅的照片，我的收费是１００非洲法郎 。我得从这一卷卷的底片中找出我所犯的错误，我就是那样学会摄影的。 ＬＤ：你在殖民政权下有遇到过什么困难吗？ 塞杜•凯塔： 没有。没人找过我麻烦。如果你想做技工，你得学习怎样才能做到；随便你学。如果你想做摄影师 － 那就更糟了¬¬－ 你就去做吧！反正买摄影耗 材的人是你；你只须做你想做的就行了。法国政府会为你学得一门手艺而高兴。没人会阻止你，人人自由。 ＬＤ：要拍一张漂亮的照片，显示它的主题，你认为要注意什么呢？ 塞杜•凯塔： 你不能就让人们坐着，然后给他们拍照。那样不好。我得让他们摆些姿势，使他们摆得尽量好看，以在形体上加点东西美化人物。那就是为什么 有这么多人来我这儿预约拍照的原因。你得帮他们摆姿势。有些人的侧面不大迷人，正面却非常好看。一个好的摄影师就是一个艺术家。你也得是个艺术家 ，因为那是你过活的唯一办法。当其他人看到这些照片的时候，他们也想这样拍。那就是为什么我要把所有的宣传样照贴到布告板上的原因。人们过来的时 候可以选择他们的姿势。 ＬＤ：衣服和其它道具扮演了什么的角色呢？ 塞杜•凯塔： 你必须穿着入时。年轻人会穿欧式服装。至于女人，她们有自己的流行服饰。很多女人会穿着宽大的ｃａｍｉｓｏｌｅ罩衫，或塞内加尔风格的衬衫。你 也得穿珠戴银。女人们盛装打扮时，会在头上戴满金饰。梳辫子时，她们会在辫子上别上金饰。在我的照相馆里，放有专供客人使用的轿车：一辆标致雷诺 ，一辆凡尔赛，一辆叫Ｓｉｌｌａ的美国汽车模型。我有三辆黄蜂牌小型摩托车，三辆自行车，一辆双座串联式自行车，两部收音机。那时在巴马科，如果能拥有 一辆车，你就可以归作上流之列。我本身并不开车，也不会开着车去兜风。我的车只是为我的顾客而买。它们给我带来了滚滚财源。 ＬＤ：那时的女人比现在的美多了！ 塞杜•凯塔： 噢，是的！现在除非你到乡下去，否则你再也看不到那样的女人了。是的！你再也看不到有那样做头发的女人了。现在的巴马科女人都胡弄她们 的头发，这就完蛋了。现在的女孩子都只想穿运动裤和裙子。以前穿裙子可是离经背道的事情，但现在．．．．．．人们可能会说，不要啦，你又来唠叨那老的一 套啊？穿裙子不好看，女人应该把自己严严实实的包裹起来，决不能露半点春光……哎，不好，一点也不好。迷你裙、男朋友——都是些违反伊斯兰律法的 东西。现在很多东西都改变了。 ＬＤ：你目睹了马里社会现代化的进程。你会觉得有点伤感吗？ 塞杜•凯塔： 时移势易啊。我们在巴马科举办展览的时候，女子学院组织了很多学生来参观。当看到旧时的女装时，她们对我说，从现在看来，那些服饰可够 难看的。当然了。但早些年的时候，穿连衣裙比较合适。女人穿短裙，你意识到那是怎样的效果吗，我们可是在非洲啊！我说的不是象牙海岸；在那里，他 们学的是欧洲人，那倒可以，他们穿什么都可以。但在家乡马里，不行！不行！ ＬＤ：摄影给你带来的最大乐趣是什么？ 塞杜•凯塔： 当我教人们摆姿势、取景、冲晒照片的时候，当我看到最后晒出来的照片的时候，那就是摄影给我带来的乐趣。在暗房里，我最喜欢的就是看着 图像慢慢呈现的过程。看到那的时候，你就会高兴。你马上就知道你有否把工作做好。那会给你带来勇气。当你做出一件好作品时，你整天都会高兴。那就 是为什么过去我常常整夜工作的原因。我可是通宵达旦地工作。当时我做的是１３Ｘ１１画幅的人物肖像，比之前的大些。但要成为一名好的摄影师，你还得懂得 如何迎接和招待客人，否则就很难拍出好的照片。你得与顾客相处得轻松愉快。那样，他们也会高兴的。 ＬＤ：实际上，你在用照片向人们讲述着一个个的故事。看你的故事，就像是在看电影。 塞杜•凯塔： （笑）

LD：为什么４０年代的摄影搞得如此成功呢？ 塞杜•凯塔：

摄影是搞得很成功。人们非常欣赏我的作品，他们都到我这儿来。有些人是从塞内加尔来的，即使他们那里也有摄影师。玛玛凯丝

（Mama Casse）也在那里。即便如此，他们也照样来我这儿。他们有从象牙海岸来的，有从尼日利亚来的，几乎什么地方都有。那是在我能做出漂亮的 照片之后的事。但有些人一点都不喜欢拍照，因为他们害怕照片会让他们死后复生。也就是这个原因，年长的人不喜欢拍照，但年轻人不在乎这个。他们 随时会来这里拍照。有时是一个人，有时是一群人，有时拍特写，有时拍全身。对他们来说，拍纪念照是种乐趣。 LD：1960年，马里宣布独立；那给你的摄影生涯带来了什么影响？ 塞杜•凯塔：所有的欧洲摄影师都回家了。国家安全局的人来找我，让我为他们工作：“塞杜，你得履行你的义务，你对国家的义务。”就我而言，我被 说服了。我知道他们说的是事实。每个人都必须尽其所能报效国家。当时我还能在我的照相馆里多干两年。然后他们告诉我说：“塞杜，既然现在我们是 个共产主义国家了，所有人都得为国家工作，你可以关闭你的照相馆了。”于是我关闭了我的照相馆。１９７７年，我申请退休。我自由了，并且成为一个领 养老金的人。 LD：但与人们想的不一样，你并没有放弃你的摄影事业。 塞杜•凯塔： 一个早晨，我在我的小暗房里维修摩托车发动机。那间小暗房已被改造成一个维修车库了。三位从法国来的男士跟我说他们要找摄影师塞杜• 凯塔。当时我的双手刚好布满油污。我说，“我就是。”他们说，“不，不可能，你是个机修工。我们要找的人是个摄影师。”我说，“但，先生，到后 屋来吧，打开那些板条箱，里面的是档案箱。每个档案箱里有１１０至１２０张盒装底片。”他们每人拿起一个档案箱，打开后，他们马上跑到外面去看里面的 底片。他们告诉我，要对他们有信心。他们要把那些底片拿到法国文化中心做鉴定。然而，就在同一天，他们返回了法国。三个月后，他们在法国文化中 心给我打电话。他们问我能否去法国。我？怎样去？身无分文的！他们的主任德克兰告诉我说，“塞杜，你只要答应就行了；他们会安排所有的事的。” 于是，他们就给我支付了所有到法国、美国和日本的费用。 LD：有些人说，你的摄影跟铁路、电影，甚至监狱一样，是个展示巴马科现代化的符号。 塞杜•凯塔： 确实是这样。在我的国家，铁路的意义重大。去卡伊（Ｋａｙｅｓ），你坐的是火车。去塞内加尔，你坐的也是火车。铁路很出名。至于监狱，所有 人对它也不会陌生。你要是做了坏事，就得接受审判。他们给你判了刑，就得找个地方让你待着。监狱是个改过自新的地方。 LD：那电影呢？ 塞杜•凯塔：电影！现在那是另一个境界了！每个人都在聊电影。无论是周六还是周日，人人都去看电影。到哪儿都一样。我们到西班牙、到柏林的时候 ，无论是晚上还是中午，人们都去看电影。电影开始时，你会觉得你是那部电影的一部分。坐在屏幕前面，要不是投影器发出飕飕的声音，你会以为你就 坐在电影里的人们中间。当镜头在一座山旁扫过的时候，你会以为你就要碰上那座山了，觉得要从那里逃开。 LD：巴马科有因摄影而改变了什么吗？ 塞杜•凯塔： 巴马科因独立而改变。至于那时的摄影业，摄影师比现在要少，因为人们不看重这个行业。我拍的所有照片都是为我的顾客而拍的，但之后 他们又把照片撕烂。到处都能看到：撕烂了的漂亮照片。我问他们，“你为什么要撕烂这些照片？”他们回答说，“哼，如果有需要，我们可以再拍。” 我说，“但你上次拍照是多久以前的事了？如果你撕了这张，然后去拍一张新的，新的那张跟现在的这张经已不一样了。你已开始变得老了些了。”你得 明白什么是照片。它对个人来说是一件非常好的纪念品，对一个家庭来说尤其如此。今天，巴马科有很多摄影师。 LD: 对你来说，保存底片是件重要的事吗？ 塞杜•凯塔： 重要，非常重要。我喜欢保留所有的底片，以防人们要翻晒照片。底片的日期写在了我给出的卡片背后（译者注：估计是装裱照片的那张卡 纸的背后）。我把所有的底片都放到箱子里，并按日期把它们排好。当有人想立即翻晒照片的时候，我就到我的暗房里把照片晒出来。如果你把底片丢掉 ，那你就得做双重功夫了。而且，拍一新张的永远复制不了原来的那一张。 LD：如果有年轻人去你那儿，说要成为摄影师，你会给他们怎样的建议呢？ 塞杜•凯塔：“那很好！”我会鼓励他们。“现在的照片好是好，但我不会用你们现在的相机。”我已用惯了暗房。但现在，那都完了。旧时，殖民时代 ，我们做的是黑白摄影。那时能买到相关的摄影耗材。现在，如果你想晒张照片，就成大问题了。寻遍整个市场，你也找不到用来做１８Ｘ２４画幅的黑白照 片的摄影耗材。现在，这些年轻人都成了摄影师，拍的都是彩色照片。没有几个会做自己的冲晒作业。他们不懂得怎样冲晒照片，只会把照片拿到照相馆 ，让别人去加工。我反对那样做。他们得学习怎样自己冲晒照片。他们还称自己是摄影师呢！到学校里学学还是好的。我以前常常从早拍到晚。我会在半 夜开始冲洗自己的底片。四小时之后，我再把照片晒印出来。我觉也不睡。中午的时候，我会到床上歇会儿，可能是一个小时吧。我要做的事情太多了。 拍张照片是件容易的事，谁都可以拍。真正的摄影师，是那个取景拍照、冲晒照片的人。 LD：这些年来，你的收藏都成了个宝库了。在你的摄影生涯中，最让你自豪的是哪几张照片？ 塞杜•凯塔： 我选不出来，因为我拍的照片实在太多了，真的是太多，太多了。照片多得很。当我在展览上看到它们的时候，它们就给了我这样的印象。 在展览上，我看到了自己的作品。展览开始后，我才发现我确实是做了些漂亮的作品。当我看到那些放大了的照片的时候，我很高兴我没犯错误，也用对 了技巧。现在，因为我的视力问题，我再也做不了同样的事了。 LD：到欧洲的时候，你看到了其他的摄影师；他们有你欣赏的作品吗？ 塞杜•凯塔：啊，是的，那里的才是真正的摄影师、伟大的摄影师。他们的作品非常棒，非常出色。

LD：但你也是一名伟大的摄影师啊！ 塞杜•凯塔：不，我不是。我从未做出过那个水平的照片。我想我儿子按照欧洲的标准去学习摄影，去了解什么才是真正的摄影。在这里，没有人知道照 片到底是什么。你给别人拍几张照片，几个月后，就可以在街上看到那些照片被随处丢弃，是那些人干的。那样的情景让我非常反感。人们让他们的小孩 来保管照片。那可好了，他们拿照片来玩，把它们弄得皱巴巴的。在我家这里，就有人在我眼前把照片撕掉。那就意味着人们根本不知道照片到底是什么 。在欧洲，你永远看不到那样的情景，看不到！你在报纸上看到的照片，可能会被丢到垃圾桶里。但对于 那些在照相馆里拍的三两张肖像照，那些被装 裱到卡纸上的照片，那些作为礼物送人的照片，你永远不会在垃圾桶里看到它们。人们会把它们放到相册里收藏起来。他们知道照片的意义所在。但在我 们这里，没人知道。

Untitled, #12, 1952- 1955, silver gelatine print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches, images: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

1． 图尔纳雄（Gaspard Felix Tournachon），笔名：纳达尔（Nadar），摄影师，飞行员，绘图员，作家，出生于法国里昂（１８２０－１９１０）。他拍过他所处时代的所有名人。 2. 1934年，夏悫影楼（Harcourt Studio）在巴黎成立。 3. 罗兰•巴特（Roland Barthes），《神话学》，巴黎瑟伊出版社，１９５７年。

法译英：Emoretta Yang 采访：莉迪•迪亚卡特，地点：法国／塞内加尔。莉迪•迪亚卡特住在纽约，从事电影策划、摄影和艺术，同时也是一名记者。

The Last Interview: Seydou Keita

by Lydie Diakhate Seydou Keita was a sage, a poet of the intimate. In his photographs, he unveiled the beauty of each of his models with discretion; without intending to, he wrote the history of Bamako starting in the days before independence. None of his photographs was shot by chance but was the product of a very personal approach to composition. And, in spite of that very personal feeling, each image introduced a more general discourse, one that resonated with society in the Sahel and with the world outside in the years from 1935 to 1965. Seydou Keita belongs to that group of exceptional artists who bear witness to their times.

Though his work is a mixture of delicate and rugged elements that can sometimes appear austere, everything in Seydou Keita's photographs is sensitivity and generosity. His work calls to mind Nadar (1), who sought, according to his own words, "to find that instant of comprehension that puts you in touch with the sitting subject, that helps you to get an overview of the subject and guides you toward the habits, the ideas, the character of the person, allowing you to achieve the realization of an intimate portrait." Seydou Keita's work also reminds us of the portraits done by the Harcourt studio (2), through whose rooms everyone who was anyone in the artistic, political and international worlds of Paris during the 1830s-1860s had to pass.

In 1957 Roland Barthes (3) wrote: "In France, one was not a significant player unless one had been photographed by the Harcourt studios," and only through the medium of those portraits would that player "rediscover his intemporal essence." Without knowing it, the individuals in Seydou Keita's clientele, in rediscovering their intemporal essence, became immortalized and entered into the legendary history of Bamako.

Mothers, fathers, married couples, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, the young and the old: with their coiffed heads, their braided hair, gathered and adorned, wearing the great formal robes called boubou, or in some fancy suit appropriate to the occasion, in the iconography of Seydou Keita the subject accedes to the sublime and the pose becomes ritual.

A new look is imposed, a new artistic expression, a new methodology. There are three sources that provide the emotional underpinnings out of which realities and dreams are brought to view. The first is of Seydou in his quest for immutable perfection, because for Seydou as photographer, the subject must offer the best of himself or herself. The second is the subject who wants to achieve his or her personal dream, because, for the duration of a sitting, he or she becomes a unique being in a privileged moment in time, an almost unthinkable experience in African societies in general, and the image crystalizes this moment and renders that intimate dream beyond time. The third source is the city of Bamako, as it attempts to affirm its authenticity through its ancestral culture and its capacity to assimilate influences of the world outside.

The portraits of Seydou Keita impose themselves on the viewer in a face-to-face encounter, creating an intimate dialogue that crosses geographic and cultural boundaries. Conducted with physical gestures, between bodies that resonate with the conversation, this dialogue is permanently displayed in the refined poses of the subjects in the photographs: in an embrace or a hug, in hands that join together or are gracefully posed on a shoulder or an arm.

These are photographs that, with their characters and props, tell us stories and reveal Malian society of the particular era in which they were taken, with the dreams and aspirations of that society. Beauty and elegance occupy the place of honor. The draped forms of the capacious robes, or the motifs of the dyed fabrics that are used as backdrop establish a visual rhythm in the gaze of the beholder. The accessory is never just a superficial adornment. Whether it be a radio set, a car, or a motorbike, the object that accompanies the sitter in the photograph can re-frame the instant in a time and a space in which tradition and modernity mingle side by side. The work of Seydou Keita leads us along the trail of a society already in movement towards interaction with the entire world.

With generosity and humility, Seydou Keita would build his whole life around one passion: photography. His international career will be launched in 1993 at the photography conference in Rouen, and his first exhibition in the city of Bamako, his home-town, will take place only at the time of the photography conference in 1995 It is an acknowledgment that comes late in a life in which artistic and professional recognition will be mostly absent in light of his compatriots' lack of interest in photography and art in general

Untitled, #58, 1950- 1955, silver gelatine print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches, images: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

Destiny! The blink of an eye! His last exhibition took place in the prestigious surroundings of the Scan Kelly Gallery, from December 8, 2001, to February 2, 2002, in Chelsea, the trendy New York neighborhood known as an international center for the visual arts. Galleries with majestic spaces sit next to warehouses that house machine repair shops and maintenance garages for utility vehicles, trucks, and the like. The smells of machine oil, the whirring of engine motors, the blue of workman's uniforms, the pounding shocks of jackhammers, all make up an environment familiar to Seydou, who, after having retired from the profession of photography, had his darkroom transformed into a mechanic's garage.

I first met Seydou Keita in 1995, at the time of an exhibition of his photographs in one of the suburbs just outside Paris, Montreuil, a town known as the second capital - after Bamako - of Mali. Immediately, I was charmed by the man and by the artist. We chatted together, for the last time, in the summer of 2001. Seydou Keita has left our world and pursues his path in the images of our memories. Let us find him once more in his words, his stories, and his life.

Lydie Diakhate: How did you become a photographer?

Seydou Keita: When my uncle returned from a trip to Senegal in 1935, he gave me a wooden box camera, in 6 by 9 format. At the time, I was a cabinet-joiner, working with my father, making furniture. With this little camera, I began taking photographs of the apprentices. I bought my film supplies at the shop of Pierre Galuet, a European. One day, he asked me why I didn't develop my own film, since the supplies were available. So I bought a bottle of developer and a bottle of fixative. I started to develop film at home. I made all my little prints. At the time, I was making 6 by 9s. It took me two years to be able to get to this point. You couldn't make out anything on my first prints. The pictures of people looked like skeletons. I was around thirteen years old. I was so upset when the photos didn't come out! When I finally succeeded in making some good portraits, I bought a 9 by 12 camera, which used plates. Afterwards, in 1949, I rented a room. It was in that room that I made the best photographs. Making prints was quick. I printed with a film-holder. I could make at least twenty photographs in an hour. People started to see the photographs around town. Then they started to come to ask me to write my address on their photo. From that moment on, my work began in earnest. When my father saw this. he said to me, "You've got two rooms over there; you should use them for a studio."

LD: So you never had any trouble with your family in becoming a photographer, at a time when photography was not a common line of work?

Seydou Keita: My father always supported me. I never took any courses in photography. I never studied it; I never went to school. I learned it just like that, by doing it. I had to, since my livelihood depended on it. I worked for my daily bread, to feed the family. They didn't have any choice; they went along. I took only portraits, ID photos, family photos, souvenir photos. For an 8 by 12 print, I charged 100 francs CFA. The way I learned, I had to see what I had done wrong on the rolls of film.

LD: Did you have any difficulties under the colonial regime?

Seydou Keita: No. No one ever bothered me. If you want to be a mechanic, you have to learn how; you're free to learn. If you want to be a photographer - so much the worse for you - just go ahead. You're the one who buys the supplies; you only have to do as you like. The French government was happy when you learned a line of work. No one prevented anyone from that. Everyone was free.

Untitled, #59, 1956- 1957, silver gelatine print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches, images: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

LD: In making a beautiful photograph, what was important to you in the presentation of the subject?

Seydou Keita: You shouldn't let people just sit like that and photograph them. That's no good. I had to pose them, to position them in the best possible way to try to add something to the figure, to embellish the person. That's why so many people would come to make appointments with me. You have to pose them.

There are some people whose profiles aren't that attractive, but viewed from the front, it's very good. A good photographer is an artist. You have to be, because that's the only way you support yourself. When other people see these photographs, they want to be photographed the same way. That's why I exhibited all my publicity samples on large placards. People come by and choose their poses.

LD: What was the role played by clothing and other props?

Seydou Keita: You had to be well-dressed. Young people dressed in European-style clothes. But for women, there were the trends in fashion. Many women wore the large camisole [translator's note: camisole in Malian French refers to a kind of spacious blouse covering the top of the body], or a blouse in the Senegalese style.

You also had to be well adorned. When they got dressed, women wore gold everywhere on their heads, and when they braided their hair, they put gold on their braids. In my studio, there were cars only for the clientele: a Peugeot a Dauphine. a Versailles, and an American model called the Silla. I had three Vespas [translator's note: a brand of motorscooter], three bicycles, a tandem, two radio sets. When you had a car, at that time in Bamako, you were well placed among the best people. As for myself, I didn't drive, and I didn't take leisurely drives in my car. I bought the cars only for my clientele. The cars brought in a lot of money for me.

LD: In those days, women were more beautiful than now!

Seydou Keita: Oh, yes! You won't see any more like that, unless you go into the countryside. Oh la, yes! You can't see a woman with her hair done up like that anymore. Bamako women fooling around with their hair, that's all over with. Nowadays, girls only want to dress in slacks and skirts. Before, wearing a skirt - but now, people might say, come on, you're not going to start that all over again. It's formally forbidden. It's not pretty. A woman should never let anyone see her.. - ah, no! It's not good. Miniskirts and boyfriends - those were forbidden in Muslim law. A lot has changed now.

LD: You were witness to the evolution of Malian society as it moved into modernity. Did that make you sad, a little?

Seydou Keita: It has changed a lot. Our exhibition was done here, in Bamako, they brought in a lot of women college students. When they saw what women used to wear, they said to me, now that is really bad. Absolutely. But in earlier times, dress was better. Women dressed in skirts, you realize what effect that has, here, for us in Africa! I'm not speaking about the Ivory Coast; they follow the Europeans, okay. they dress no matter how. But at home in Mali. No.No.

LD: What gives you the greatest pleasure in photography?

Seydou Keita: When I pose people, when I frame a shot, when I develop the film and print it, when I see the final print, the shots. What I like most in the darkroom is to see the picture as it emerges. When you see that, you are happy. You know immediately if you have done good work. That gives you courage. When you have done good work, you are happy all the time! That is why I used to spend the whole night working. I worked all through the night. That was on portrait photographs, in the larger format, 13 x11. But to be a good photographer, you also have to know how to receive and welcome people Without that, you can't make good photos.

You have to be happy and light-hearted with the clientele. Then they, too, will be happy.

LD: In fact, with your photographs, you are telling us stories. Your stories, it's like going to the movies!

Seydou Keita: (Laughter) LD: Why was photography so successful in the 1940s?

Seydou Keita: Photography had a lot of success. People admired my work so much, everyone came around.

There were people who came from Senegal, even though there are photographers over there. Mama Casse was over there. All the same, they would come to me. People came from the Ivory Coast, from Nigeria, a little from all over. That's when I started to make beautiful photographs. But some didn't like having their photograph made at all because they feared being revived afterward, once they were dead. Adults didn't like to have their photos taken for this reason, but young people didn't give a damn about it! They came to have their photos taken at any time. Alone, in groups, for a close-up or a full-length portrait. For them, having a souvenir photo was a pleasure!

LD: In 1960, independence was declared; what happened to you as a photographer?

Seydou Keita: All the European photographers went home. The national security service came to see me to get me to work for them: "You must do your duty, Seydou, your duty for the State." For my part, I was convinced.

I know that what they told me was reality. Everyone must do what he can for the State. I was able to work for two more years in my studio, then they told me, "You can close your studio, Seydou, since we are in a socialist country, and everyone must work for the State." I closed the studio. In 1977, I asked for retirement, I was liberated, and I became a pensioner.

LD: But contrary to what one might imagine, your career as a photographer doesn't stop there!

Seydou Keita: One morning I was there in my little darkroom, which had been transformed into a mechanic's garage, and I was fixing my motorcycle engine. Three gentlemen who came from France told me that they were looking for Seydou Keita, the photographer. It so happened that my hands were covered with oil. I said, "That's me." They said, "No, that can't be, you're a mechanic. We're looking for a photographer." I said, "But, sir, go into the back room, open up the crates, and you'll see filing boxes. Each box contains almost 110 or 120 negatives in cartons." Each of them took a box and opened it. In one rush they ran outside to look at the negatives.

The men told me to have confidence in them. They were going to take the negatives to the French Cultural Center to have them verified. But the same day, they left for France. Three months later, they called me at the French Cultural Center by telephone. They asked me if I could go to France. Me? How could I go? I didn't have any money! Decranne, the director, said to me, "Seydou, all you have to do is accept; they will make all the arrangements. And so, they're the ones who have paid for me to travel all over in France, America, and Japan.

LD: Some say that your photography is like a symbol that revealed the modernity of Bamako in the same way as the railway, the cinema, and even, the prison.

Seydou Keita: That is true. In my country, the railroad counted for a lot. To go to Kayes, you took the train. For Senegal, the same thing. The railroad was famous. As for the prison, everyone knew it as well. When you did something bad, the judges were there. They judge you, and then there has to be a place to keep you. The prison was a house of correction.

LD: And what about the cinema?

Seydou Keita: The cinema! Now. that has evolved! Everyone talked about the cinema. Saturday, Sunday, everybody went to the movies. But it was the same everywhere. When we went to Spain, in Berlin, at night, in the middle of the day, people went to the movies. When the movie began, you would think that you yourself were a part of it. You're sitting in front of the screen, but except for the whirring of the film projector, you would think you were sitting in the middle of the people on the screen. When the camera passes near a hill, you think you're about to touch the hill. You feel you have to duck out of the way.

Untitled, #42A51, 1950- 1955, silver gelatine print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches, images: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

LD: What changed in Bamako with photography?

Seydou Keita: Bamako changed with independence. But for photography at that time, there were fewer photographers because photography was not considered valuable. All the photographs I made were made for my clients, but afterwards, they tore them up. I saw them everywhere: beautiful photographs torn up. I asked them, "Why do you tear up the photographs?" They replied, "Well, if we need them, we'll go have ourselves photographed again." I said, "But how long has it been since you were last photographed? If you tear up this one, you'll go have a new one taken, but it won't be like the first one. You're already beginning to get older." You have to understand what a photograph is. It's a good souvenir for an individual, and above all, for a family. Today, Bamako is full of photographers.

LD: Was it important for you to save all your negatives?

Seydou Keita; Yes, very important. I preferred to keep all my negatives in case people wanted to duplicate them. The date is on the back of the card that I give out [translator's note: presumably the card on which the photograph was mounted]. I arrange all my negatives in boxes with the date. When someone wants to have his photo reprinted immediately, I go back into the dark room and print it. If you throw the negatives away, you double your work. And printing the new shot can never reproduce the original, the first one.

LD: When young people come to see you, wanting to become photographers, what advice do you give them?

Seydou Keita: "It's very good." I encourage them. "The photo is good. But the camera you're working with now, I don't know it". I've always been familiar with the darkroom. But now, all that is over with. In the old days, during the colonial period, we worked in black-and-white. You had all the materials available. Today, when you want to make a print, it's a big problem. You root all around in the market-place, but you won't find black-and-white supplies in 18 by 24 format. Now, all these young people have become photographers, and everyone works in color. There aren't a lot who do their own laboratory work. They don't know how to develop film, and they don't know how to print. They take their photos to a photo lab, which processes them. I'm against that. They need to learn how to develop and print the photographs themselves.

And they call themselves photographers! Going to school is fine. I used to shoot from morning to evening.

At midnight, I would begin developing my film. Four hours later, I made my prints. I didn't sleep. At noon I went to bed to rest, perhaps for an hour. I had too much work. Snapping a shot is easy, anyone can do it.

The true photographer is the one who frames the shot, develops the film, and prints it.

LD: Over the years, you have stored away a treasure-house. In your work as a photographer, what are the photographs that you are most proud of?

Seydou Keita: I couldn't choose from my own work, because there are so many of them, There are too many, way too many. There are a lot of photographs. When they were exhibited, it made such an impression on me. There, I saw my work. It was after the exhibition was mounted that I knew that I had truly done some beautiful work. When I saw the photos in the enlarged prints, I was happy that there were no mistakes and that the execution was correct. Nowadays I can no longer do the same thing. Because of my eyesight.

Untitled, #82, 1956- 1955, silver gelatine print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches, images: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

Untitled, #23, 1952- 1955, silver gelatine print, edition of 10, paper: 24 x 20 inches, images: 22 x 15 – ½ inches (approximately), framed: 32 x 24 – 5/8 inches

LD: When you traveled to Europe, you met other photographers; did you appreciate any of their work?

Seydou Keita: Ah, yes, over there, those are real photographers. Great photographers. They've made excellent photos, top-notch.

LD: But you, too, are a great photographer!

Seydou Keita: No, I am not a great photographer. I've never made photographs at that level. I would have wanted my son to learn photography the way you must learn it in Europe. To know what photography truly is.

Here, no one knows what a photograph really is. Few months after you make some photographs, you see them tossing around in the street, people throw them out. When I see that I feel really sick. People let their children handle photographs, and there they are, playing with them, creasing them. Here, in my own home, I have seen people tear up photographs. That means that no one knows what a photograph truly is. In Europe, you'll never see that. No. The photograph that you see in the newspaper, perhaps you might see that one in the trash can.

But the two or three portrait prints, taken in the photographer's studio, mounted on cardstock, which you've received as a gift, you'll never see those in the trashcan. People keep those. They put them into albums. They know what a photograph is. But we, here, we don't know.

1. Gaspard Felix Tournachon, called Nadar, photographer, airman, draftsman and writer, born in Lyon (18201910). He photographed all the well-known personalities of his era.

2. The Harcourt Studio was established in Paris in 1934.

3. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, Paris, Seuil, 1957.

Translated from French by Emoretta Yang * Interview first published in NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art published by Duke University Press, Durham, USA. Lydie Diakhate is from France and Senegal. She lives in New York where she works as an independent curator, journalist and scholar of film, photography and art.

Nii Obodai

Nii Obodai

Angèle Etoundi Essamba

Angèle Etoundi Essamba

STEPPING OUT (and Sitting Down): AFRICA CLAIMS ITS PLACE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

by Ulrich Baer 走出来（及坐下）：非洲跻身摄影前沿 文：乌尔里奇•

试通过照片中人物的面部特征找出犯罪行为，到相机被用于司法鉴定，再到护照照片的发明并用作身份辨别，摄影术被法律雇用了。 最初，摄影作为控制被拍摄主体的一种方式而被运用。不过，当同一主体利用摄影来维护自己个人的而非被标注的身份时，这一用途有了逆转。被拍摄的 人们为了被控制自动走到镜头前，展示他们作为自由公民的新身份，主张他们新发现的权利，以自己的语言表现自己。他们热切地拥抱并渴望曾将他们作 •迪斯德利

，但每一次拍照都还有可能拍出新形象。如果说警察局、医院、监狱、部队、学校和法院系统都运用照相机来监控并剥夺人们各种各样由国家赋予的自由 ，那么，照相馆便是这些人充分表达这一自由的地方，以便所有人都能看得到。

制下的人进行拍照。那些照片确定了照片中人物的身份。在这种启发式划分法的另一面，也有一些人愿意打破常规，在相机前面以特别的方式和自己的风 格拍摄照片。 让我们假定，当下对这种基本的结构仍然有一些挑战，人们通常以两种完全相反的方式理解并体验摄影。或者，照相机对准某个人，为了使那个人的面容 适合现有视觉语法，经过或不经过那个人的同意，就开始拍摄；或者，一个人自愿并有意摆出姿势，让摄影师拍出她在世界上的意义。当然，为有意破坏 摄影师的意图，躲避约束性的视觉语法而扮鬼脸拍出脸部照片也有可能。从对摄影史的解构性解读显示，每个视觉范例都可以从内部打开。而且，事情往 往是，人们随意选择怎样被拍摄，但结果是茫茫然落入了俗套，放弃了在现有视觉语法中创造新境界的想法。不过，差异还是存在。你出现在镜头前，是 因为你被指使，有人用暴力或语言强制你迎合快门的咔嚓声，或者你穿着最好的节日服装，想有人来帮你展现自己。 在欧洲人将照相机和枪支一起装在背包里，侵略并控制殖民地的时候，发生了什么事情呢？几十年来，殖民摄影一直都是反映视觉政体的压迫性一面。侵 略殖民军队把摄影作为证明帝国势力所及之处及从殖民者的角度拍摄当地居民的一个手段。殖民军队和摄影师一起将无数人热心地推至镜头前，这些人肯 定有自己的意愿，但是他们没有机会建构如何观看这些照片的视觉语汇。因此，资料丰富的殖民档案中，每幅照片都属于一个视觉语法，而这个视觉语法 会被殖民者呈现为某些既定的类型。被拍摄的人不是代表他们自己，而是要去符合殖民者的一个类别（主要是一类与摄影师有别的人，且通常比摄影师的 地位低等）。甚至，人类学摄影师及伪科学摄影师都将被殖民非洲人看成是西方人操控的镜头前的物体，要他们看起来必须符合欧洲人认为非欧洲人该有 的模样。拍摄出来的照片都是国家对摄影术罪恶运用的产物，摄影成为压迫的工具。在以启发的方式将摄影术划分为压迫性摄影和自由自我表达的工具两 个类别之间，那些照片正好在压迫性那一面。

镜头之下以及殖民地摄影历史的文化和象征性语境中的人们的。如果欧洲的照相机能够将拍摄主体嵌入被压制的相框，但同样的相机又允许同样的人扮演 、证实、展示并宣扬他们新发现的自由主体特征，那么殖民地摄影的另一面在哪里呢？丢失的负片和相版在哪里呢？那些展示人们走到照相机前，塑造他 们自己的形象，而不是被摆布为被殖民者的形象且被人遗忘的胶片在哪里呢？非洲在哪里、什么时候且怎样回顾过去？

是，每一个非洲摄影师拿起相机，让其他非洲人在相机前摆出摄影师想要的造型，拍出的结果是，照片中人走出了客观化的视觉语法，这正是摄影从一开 始就有的黑暗面。可以确定的是，为了摆脱殖民统治的桎梏，从来都有抵抗和勇敢的斗争。但是要走出被殖民主体的受限制形象框架，相机必须持把在非 洲人的手中，才能在世界上创造出新形象：那是用非洲人自己决定的方式来看待的形象。 奇努阿•阿奇比强调解放以后的非洲人形成新生存方式的必要性。

在新近获得自由的殖民地上，没有政治、社会活动和行动的记录。但是也没有自由非洲人的照片。殖民统治被推翻了，但比席卷非洲近半个世纪的革命还 要长久的事业便是用非洲人的新形象代替受压迫的影像库，使他们可以自由摆出他们想要别人看到的样子。 É

为达妮埃尔•

殖民遗风的影响，把非洲人的衣着定义为自我表现的一种方式。蒙博托禁止人民穿西式服装（与六十年代采取同类措施的非洲国家同出一辙），提倡穿

表现的非洲穷人专有。他们以自己的方式站出来表达自己，穿艳丽浮华的衣服，表明“我是自己的主人”。这些穿设计师服装的男人充分意识到，在世界

头高昂，脸上满是自豪和不卑不亢的神色，他的右手正在整理身上的衣服，想使自己看上去更漂亮，他整个身心都知道，每一个人，包括坐在板凳上的年

贴换交易，换取在全球象征财富与权力的视觉语汇来确立自己的身份就不足为奇。但真的是这样吗？如果通过照相机和旁观者可以获得代表财富与权力的 外表，也许真正的自由会尾随而来？因为所有争取自由的斗争皆是人们梦寐以求的，而且，自由永不能局限于已经知晓的权利。看……那个穿戴着白西装

洲人的存在方式开辟了前所未有的新路向。 这是否一种过分沉溺以衣取人的无意义作为？是的，如果我们想否定这些非洲人接触全球认同、普世存在的财富与权力符号的话。丢下那些虚伪的标签做

见，不慎地限制非洲人接触世界上的象征秩序，从而也限制了他们决定自己生活方式的基本人权。

量，这个身份就难以确立。

工程，它旨在走出有注脚的影像（即“真正的非洲人”，贫穷的后殖民时代非洲人）的阴影，进入自我定义的主体角色。如此并没有损害到任何东西：不 但无损政治、社会或经济的独立，所有这些东西刚果民主共和国仅只争取到其中一部分。自由，无论在布拉柴维尔还是任何地方，是个抽象的范畴，它超 越了解放、自治或独立自主等等。塔马尼的照片还指向另一个原因。当然，塔马尼影像中的男人走出来不单单是为了秀自己，这些人也走出来摆脱将非洲 人客观化和标签化的摄影陋习，从而迈进一个新的历史时刻：非洲人能够用全世界人民都理解的摄影和时装语汇来创造自己的新形象。在穿着非洲民族服

停止作秀吧，塔马尼作品里的非洲人以他们的穿着、姿势、脚、头、姿态和眼神向我们示意。我们正摆脱未经我们同意而强加给我们的角色，从此以后， 是接受还是拒绝这些角色将由我们自主决定。为此，那五个身穿紫色连身裙的女子穿过路旁田野走向摄影镜头的步伐是不可阻挡的。绝没有什么可以阻挡 这五位穿高跟鞋的丽人，即便是好心好意的一大堆福柯式精神分析（国家的压制力量已进入了我们的灵魂）也不可以。根据这样的分析，选穿紫色丝质夹 克意味着，这些妇女企图抛开属于她们的真正的非洲特质，而渴求那最束缚限制她们的东西。无论如何，这五个女人昂然迈进了自己选择的时间，在这里

示的照片表明，人们可以用自己期望的方式来塑造自己，表达自己渴求的一个不被预先安排的身份。一个男人掀起他的蓝色土耳其长袍迈出步履，露出搭

他自己缔造的现实。快门按下的一刻，他的眼睛似乎闭上了，而他安静祥和的面容，与他边用一只手挽起褶襉长袍边向前走形成的自然飘动形成强烈对比 。他像是一尊前进中的赤脚雕塑，凝格成了一个标志性形象，他使得全非洲–不仅仅是这幕街头景象，以摄影世界之姿冒起，而这个世界由在那里生活的 •

前跃出一大步。 这些都是英勇无畏的步伐。迈步前并没有经过充分的准备，阿奇比断言，因而，它们令非洲仍旧停留在不确定的边缘，尽管它人力与自然资源皆无比丰富 。在非洲，非洲人一直流离失所、疲于奔命，若要走出安派给其的政治和符号模式，打断客观化和否定手段长达一个世纪的循环，可能意味着非洲人要停 步，坐下，原位不动。在马科• 令要作何打扮和貌相―就是这么做的。他们坐下来，主动拥有接纳然后确定自己长久以来被指派的外观和相貌，那是通过欧洲人的镜头所看到的非洲人模 样。他们在一张欧式扶手椅坐下，好像正放下无休无止的移民生活的疲惫和艰辛来歇一歇，然而打个比方说，他们也是在占据一个他们从未被正确看待过 的稍纵即逝的短暂空间。那个穿正规斜领黑缎衣的男孩，他用两个手指撑头，他坐在一张欧洲老式椅子的边缘。他同时也是坐于一个现实世界的边缘，在 那里非洲人出于他们自己的选择而称欧洲为自己的家园。 早期的视觉典范把非洲人禁闭到摄影师镜头前的狭窄空间，那空间犹如殖民地的合法疆界。后来，早始于二十世纪初期非洲人拿起了照相机，开始塑造他 们自己的身份，接着，殖民地获得政治独立之初，大量摄影作品涌现。这些解放运动迫使非洲人走出现存视觉模式，重新描画政治和象征性的归属图，并 开始根据自己的主张来照相。然而下一步是，使非洲人在无论从政治和象征角度来看，都不是作为非洲人家园而建设的地方自信的存在。照片里的尼日利 亚人，在简陋的椅子上坐下，停留在一个直到目前为止他们还不能全部拥有或设计他们形象的地方。他们的姿势举动是非洲人，因为他们就是那样被看待 的，但是，在这些坐姿中他们也创造了新的视觉语法，为全球化世界中的非洲人身份下定义。 在摄影的历史中，“非洲特性”主要由殖民摄影师构建。之后于后殖民时代初期，它成为了原真性的标志。现在，表现“非洲特质”的真正面貌就是鼓吹 去除西方影响和思想控制。然而这种“非洲特性”很快被接纳，特别是被年轻一代接纳，他们在成长中品尝新获得的自由，把自由当做另一个受限制的图 像。它回溯到数百年前非洲的原神话年代，那时欧洲人那场把非洲人陷于不自由、低等角色的侵略和劫掠还未开始。作为被视为能象征纯粹本质的图像， “非洲特性”成了另一种需要摆脱的束缚。 数百年来非洲人的身份于维罗纳仅仅意味着：否定民族自决，因此也不允许一个非洲人用自己希望世界看到的方式表现自己，维罗纳的非洲人正是在这样 的一个地方表现自己的非洲特性。马科•安布罗西摄影作品中的人物重拾那种“非洲特性”并拒绝受其束缚。他们回望着你，或者说，他们凝视我们的目 光并没有不屑。他们审视着我们，那个裹着夺目耀眼的绿黑色太阳几何图形印花布、有着长短不一指甲的女人也审视着我们。他们从一个长久以来排斥他 们，现在仍然受严格监控、军警戒备深严的地方看着我们：那个地方是由这些此刻于欧洲坐在照相机前拍照的非洲人开辟的。凭着坐下来这个姿态，这些 非洲人否定了一个逻辑，按这种逻辑，他们看上去应该是无助或愤怒的，愚昧或野蛮的，但永不能有自己的主张，永远都是照相机排斥的客体。此刻他们

样的一个事实：通过这些图片，别人怎样看待我们（非洲人）。

Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi

Andrew Dosunmu

Andrew Dosunmu

STEPPING OUT (and Sitting Down): AFRICA CLAIMS ITS PLACE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

by Ulrich Baer In the first decades after the invention of photography by Niépce and Daguerre in 1839 the medium quickly became a tool in the state’s arsenal of repression and control. Photographs were used to identify and lock down criminals, and cameras afforded the authorities new ways of surveillance, control, and domination over an exploding public in Europe’s and America’s cities. From Lombrosi’s attempts to detect criminality through facial traits in photographs, all other forensic uses of the camera to the creation of passport pictures as means for identification, photography was enlisted by the law.

This early use of photography as a mode of domination over the depicted subject, however, was countered when the same subjects seized photography to assert private and non-scripted identities. The people who were photographed in order to be controlled voluntarily stepped in front of the lens to showcase their relatively new status as free citizens and assert their newfound right to define themselves on their own terms. They eagerly embraced and desired the technology of their oppression and, in a dialectical dance that continues to this day, ultimately made it their own. The 1860s witnessed explosive growth of cheaply produced photographic visiting cards (first popularized by Andre Disdéri) and of photo studios that documented the milestones in an individual’s life. People learned to perform their role as free citizens, and even if the resulting pictures conform to stereotypes they leave the potential for new identities to be formed in each shot. If the police station, hospital, penitentiary, military, and school and court systems had all used the camera to monitor and curtail people’s freedom in relation to the state, the photo studio was the space where the same people could expand on and enact this freedom for all to see.

It is thus possible to draw a thick line across the huge body of photographs taken from 1839 to, say, 1900 (the break-through of Eastman’s Kodak cameras for mass use). On one side, we have pictures of people that the camera helps govern and control. These are photographs that define and prescribe the photographed person’s identity. On the other side of this heuristic divide there are photographs of people who chose to step out and in front of a camera to present themselves in a particular way and on their own terms.

Let us assume, for the moment, that even with certain challenges to this basic set-up people generally knew and experienced photography in these two diametrically opposed ways. A camera was either trained on someone, with or without that person’s consent but in order to fit this person’s countenance into an existing visual grammar – or a person voluntarily and deliberately chose to pose for a photographer to define her own meaning in the world. It was possible, of course, to undermine the photographer’s intention and elude the repressive visual grammar, and grimace for a mug shot. A deconstructive reading of the history of photography reveals the way in which every visual paradigm can be opened from within. And it also happened that people chose freely to be photographed but ended up numbly conforming to stereotypes and foregoing the option to carve a new space in the existing visual grammar. Nonetheless, the distinction holds. You are in front of lens because you have been ordered, by force or interpellation, to submit to the shutter’s click – or you’ve donned your Sunday best and want a hand in how you are portrayed.

What happened when the Europeans packed their cameras alongside their guns to invade and control the colonies? For decades, colonial photography overwhelmingly clung to the repressive side of this visual regime. The invading and colonizing armies deployed photography as a means to demonstrate the empire’s reach and capture the local inhabitants from the colonizers’ point of view. They brought along photographers who eagerly placed before the lens countless individuals who surely had the capacity for free will but were not given access to shape the visual idiom in which their pictures would be viewed. Every photograph in the vast colonial archives thus belongs to a visual grammar that objectifies the colonized peoples as certain types. People were photographed to represent not themselves but to conform to a colonialist category (principally that of human beings of a different and usually lesser status from that of the photographer). Even anthropological and pseudo-scientific photographers looked at the colonized people as objects in front of a Western-held lens and fit them into the stereotypes of what Europeans thought non-Europeans were supposed to look like. The resulting pictures are all products of the state’s nefarious use of photography as a repressive tool, and places those images on one side of the heuristic divide between photography as repression vs. photography as means of free self-expression.

So where is the other dimension of photography in the colonies? Where is the liberating counter-part to this repressive track, the B-side of this abominable record of people caught within the crosshairs of economic, military and political domination and the cultural and symbolic grammar that structures the colony’s photographic record? If the cameras in Europe could trap their depicted subjects in the repressive grid but the same cameras allowed the same people them to enact, affirm, showcase and then disseminate evidence of their newfound free subject-hood, where was this other side of photography in the colonies? Where are the missing negatives and contact sheets, the forgotten reels where people step out in front of the camera and reclaim their own images rather than being placed there as colonized people? Where, when, and how does Africa look back?

We need shows like Africa: See You, See Me! to reveal that other side of photography in Africa and to recall photography’s liberating potential. It took well into the 20th century for Africans to get hold of the possibility and means to document themselves. But every African photographer who picked up a camera to allow other Africans to shape the way they would be seen resulted in a picture of someone stepping out of the visual grammar of objectification that is the dark side of photography from its beginning. To be sure, there had been resistance and courageous struggle and sacrifice to throw off the shackles of colonial rule. But for people to step out of the set of images available to the colonized subjects, cameras needed to be in African hands to create a new image in the world: that of free Africans seen in ways determined by themselves.

Chinua Achebe stresses the need for the liberated people of Africa to develop new modes of being.

“At the end of the day [after the stuggles for equality, for justice, for freedom], when the liberty was won, we found that we had not sufficiently reckoned with one incredibly important fact: If you take someone who has not really been in charge of himself for 300 years and tell him, “O.K., you are now free,” he will not know where to begin.”

There were no scripts of political and social action and behavior in the newly freed colonies. But there were also no images available of free Africans. The overthrow of the colonial legacy, a project far longer than the revolutions that swept Africa nearly half a century ago, means the replacement of the archive of oppression with new images of Africans who freely shape the way they want to be seen.

Now look at the members of “La Societé des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes,” dandys in the Republic of Congo originally inspired by the pop singer Papa Wemba in the 1960s and posing today for Daniele Tamagni. These sapeurs are dressed to impress, and they are stepping out of a place that had provided two stark options. The first had been Mobutu Sese Seko’s “authenticity movement” in the 1960s that banned any Western, colonial influence and prescribed African dress as a form of political self-expression. Mobutu’s ban of Western clothing (analogous to similar measures in other African countries in the 1960s) in favor of the abacost lays to rest any doubts that visual self-expression, fashion and photography are superficial and secondary concerns of political freedom in the world. But the second available look for the sapeurs, especially after the end of Mobutu’s reign, as the visual and public expression of identity was the “look” of the post-colonial poor dressed in cast-off Western clothes. Out of this dilemma of two problematic options step the sapeurs to claim a look not governed by other’s ideas – whether the despotic African father figure’s or the charitable Western image of African poverty. There they present themselves as people of their own making, wearing flashy clothes that show a person to be his own lord and master. For these men wear designer duds in full awareness that those labels signify power, status, respect, masculinity and ownership in the world’s visual culture. Note the way … steps out of the blue metal doors of the photo studio into the camera’s light, his head held high, his face proud and disdainful, his right hand adjusting his clothes to look real good, and his whole being aware that everyone, including the young woman sitting on the bench and us as viewers today, will not be able to fully contain this look.

The Republic of Congo is a poor country, and also Africa’s largest producer of diamonds and other products used to make luxury goods. Small wonder, then, that the sapeurs of Bacongo, in Brazzaville, trade in the visual vocabulary of global wealth and power to assert an identity that is beyond their reach. But is it? If the look of wealth and freedom can be achieved in front of cameras and onlookers, perhaps real freedom can follow? For all struggles for freedom are aspirational, and freedom can never be limited to the achievement of already known rights. Look at …. the man with a white suit, tie, and hat, jacket in hand, with the petrolblue shirt against the white metal doors. He and the fellow sunglass-sporting sapeur step out and into the frame, ready to assume a position and role that had been created by white colonizers and vacated when the colonies were freed. But with their defiant reliance on Western high fashion played on and against an African color scheme, the sapeurs create a new way of being African that had not existed before.

Is it a pointless exercise in sartorial excess? Only if we wish to deny these Africans access to the ubiquitous and globally recognized codes of wealth and freedom. Drop the pretentious labels and live like real Africans, an offended viewer might say to the sapeurs instead of reveling in their magnificence – and thus inadvertently continue a long tradition of limiting Africans’ access to the symbolic order of the world and by extension the elementary human right to determine their own lives.

Tamagni’s photographs showcase Africans who add to the existing visual grammar of what it means to be a modern subject. But it’s important to note that the Congolese sapeurs pose not for Tamagni, for us viewers or local onlookers. The sapeurs pose first and foremost for themselves to create an identity that had never existed before, and that cannot become real without relying on the powers of fantasy, imagination and photography.

Tamagni’s pictures are effective for several reasons. Since they capture several sapeurs literally in the decisive moment of stepping out, the physical action caught in these scenes serves to illustrate the sapeurs’ metaphysical project of stepping out of a scripted image (“authentic African,” impoverished post-colonial African) into a self-defined subjecthood. Nothing less is at stake here: not only political, social or economic independence, all of which have only been partly achieved in the Republic of Congo. Freedom – in Brazzaville as everywhere – is a metaphysical category beyond the attainment of liberty, autonomy or independence.

Tamagni’s photographs work for a second reason. The men in his images are stepping out simply to be seen, of course. But these men also step out of a practice of photography that had objectified Africans and into a new historical moment where Africans can use the globally understood idioms of photography and fashion to create a new image of themselves. They are not just stepping out and literally into the public arena of Brazzaville, surrounded by people in African dress, cast-off Western clothes, and the generic utilitarian outfits sported by the emerging world’s poor. These sapeurs are stepping out confidently, imposingly, fabulously but also assertively with a swagger and a bit of aggression to claim a new space. They are taking a step into a future that will no longer be structured by the stable distance between the Africans over there and us as viewers over here.

Stop the show, the Africans in these photographs signal with their dress, their stance, their feet, heads, attitude and eyes. We are stepping out of roles to which we had been assigned without our consent, and our embrace or rejection of those roles will from now on be of our own volition. Thus nothing stands in the way of the five women in purple dresses advancing toward the camera across a patch of soil by a road. Nothing will stop these five graces in their heels, not even a well-intentioned bloc of Foucaultian analysis that reveals the state’s forces of repression to have entered our psyches. The choice of lavender silk and purple jackets, according to such an analysis, could signal these women’s attempt to leave their authentic Africanness behind and desire that which confines them most. But these five women march into a zone where they choose fashion according to their own taste and beyond the dichotomy of African authenticity vs. Western imperialist and post-colonial imposition.

Foucault has taught us that government control and state authority might be most pernicious once lodged inside our minds: when we desire that which oppresses us. The photographs in Africa: See You, See Me! show that there remains the possibility for people to fashion themselves in ways they want to be, and to desire an identity that is not pre-scripted. A man lifts his blue kaftan to step forward, revealing the red leggings that match his red headwrap. Like the women in purple, and several sapeurs, he is also caught in mid-step, moving in a space defined by historical and political forces but also stepping out into a reality of his own making. His eyes appear closed at the moment the shutter clicked, and his immobile, peaceful countenance contrasts strikingly with the Raphaelean flow of his draped kaftan gathered with one hand to move on. As a barefooted sculpture on the move he becomes an iconic figure who allows all of Africa, and not only this street scene to emerge as the negative space created by the people who live there. “Africa’s postcolonial disposition,” writes Chinua Achebe, “is the result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves.” The man with a red turban is taking a small step on a dusty road in Senegal but like every African in Africa: See You, See Me! he is taking a giant leap forward to reclaim self-determination.

These are bold steps, in each case. They are taken without sufficient preparation, Achebe asserts, and leave Africa still on the brink of uncertainty in spite of its vast human and material riches. But outside of Africa the need is different. There Africans have been kept on the run, and stepping out of prescribed political and symbolic patterns to interrupt a centuries-long cycle of objectification and denial means might mean, for Africans, to stop, sit down, and stay put. In Marco Ambrosi’s portraits of a Nigerian community in Verona, Italy, Africans who have been instructed to look a certain way, in so many words and for much longer than a century, do precisely that. They sit down and make it their business to own and then refine the look to which they have been assigned, which had been that of being African as seen through a European lens. They take a seat in a fancy upholstered European armchair, literally taking a rest from the immigrants’ life of unceasing toil and struggle but metaphorically also taking possession of a space in which they had never been properly seen and which had been available to them only as transients. The boy in his formal white satin suit with black shawl-collar and his two fingers supporting his head sits on the edge of an old European chair. But he also sits on the edge of a new reality where Africans claim Europe as their home as a matter of their own choosing.

An earlier visual paradigm had confined Africans to a space in front of the photographer’s lens that was identical to the legal territory of the colonies. Then Africans took a hold of cameras and began to develop their own identities, early in the 20th century and then in great numbers once the colonies gained autonomy. These liberation movements compelled Africans to step out of existing visual patterns, redraw the maps of political and symbolic belonging, and start posing for the camera on their own terms. But the next step is the self-confident presence of Africans in a space that had been constructed, both politically and symbolically, as not a dwelling place for Africans. The Nigerians in the upholstered chair sit down and stay in a place where their image had not been something they either fully owned or could design up to this point. They pose and perform as Africans because that is how they are treated and seen, but they also create in these sittings a new visual grammar for what it means to be African in the globalized world.

In the history of photography “Africanness” had been largely a construction by colonial photographers. It then became a marker of authenticity in the immediate post-colonial period. There the authentic look of “Africanness” was promoted to cast off Western influence and mind control. But this “Africanness” was soon recognized, especially by the younger generation tasting newfound freedom at the moment they came of age, as another limiting image. It harked back to a mythic untouched period hundreds of years earlier, before the European invasion and pillage of Africa that had cast Africans in the role of unfree and lesser people. And as any image thought to signal a pure essence “Africanness” became another limitation to be cast off.

The Africans in Verona perform this Africanness in a place where being African had meant for centuries precisely one thing: the denial of self-determination, and thus the denial of presenting oneself the way one wants to be seen in the world. The people in Ambrosi’s photographs reclaim that “Africanness” and refuse to be limited by it. They look back at you or don’t deign us with their gaze. They study us, as does the woman with the fingernails of different lengths in the print fabric radiating green-and-black geometric suns. They watch us from a place that had been long denied to them, and is still severely restricted and heavily policed: the place created by Africans who sit for a camera in Europe. By sitting down these Africans defy a logic that had forced them to be seen as helpless or irate, innocent or savage, but never on their own terms and always as objects on the other side of the camera. Their gaze now follows us, making us realize that all along, regardless of the countless precautions that had been taken to make Africans look a particular way in photography, it’s not Africa that’s on view here but the fact that from within these pictures we are being seen.

Cedric Nunn

Majida Khattari

BEYOND LAMPEDUSA: AFRICA MEETS EUROPE

by Alessandra Di Maio 超越蓝佩杜萨岛之外：非洲遇见欧洲 文：亚历山德拉•迪•梅约（Ａｌｅｓｓａｎｄｒａ Ｄｉ Ｍａｉｏ）

欧洲与非洲在地理、文化上一直有着紧密的联系。早在近期的百万非洲人到达欧洲南部的蓝佩杜萨岛（Ｌａｍｐｅｄｕｓａ，位于意大利最南端）、直布罗陀海峡 及被西班牙占领的休达（Ｃｅｕｔａ，位于摩洛哥 ）和梅利利亚（Ｍｅｌｉｌｌａ，位于摩洛哥）之前，这两个大洲就有了不同性质的交流。尤其是意大利与非洲的交 流一直都没有停止过，他们的商业航线、历史神话及传说一直交织在一起。有谁没有被意大利史诗《埃涅阿斯纪》中意大利的建国英雄阿涅阿斯和迦太基 皇后伊利莎（又称蒂朵）的悲伤的爱情故事所感动？听到汉尼拔将军正骑着战象穿过阿尔卑斯山脉时，有谁不感到敬畏？知道苔丝德蒙娜和她英勇的丈夫 欧塞罗的死，又有谁不感到心碎？ 随着上世纪８０年代第一次大规模非洲移民潮的到来，意大利和非洲也达到了空前紧密的关系。人们开始从马格里布和撒哈拉以南的非洲地区纷纷到达意大 利。来自非洲各个方向的男男女女，在意大利这个不久前还因为其外迁移民而全球著名的国家找到了属于自己的家，与历史相反的是，意大利此次成为了 移民接收中心。最初到达意大利的几千名非洲人很快就发展成了数十万后殖民时代的移民工，他们踏进欧盟各国的大门寻找工作机会和更好的经济条件。 他们或逃离独裁政权统治或躲避残酷的内战来到第一世界寻求安全的避难所。无论是单身还是与家人一起，是合法还是非法，来到这里，他们都怀着同一 个愿望：在这片土地上创造更美好的生活。他们成为意大利人，当然是文化上的，因为意大利有严格的公民身份制度：公民身份是按照血缘相传决定的， 而不是出生地。虽然并非百分百意大利人，但他们也是意大利人。他们还有他们的后代都是意籍非洲人。 自上世纪８０年代起，意籍非洲人大量增加，随处可见，发展迅速。如较大的移民社群一样，这个群体正在成为意大利国家风景、统计数字和话题中的一部 分。尽管这些讨论沸沸扬扬、片面而又问题多多，讨论主要在报刊、电视、网络上进行，热门话题还包括了最新制定的有关试图（通常以失败告终）规范 移民流程的法律条文。事实上，从司法角度来看，在意大利，这个移民不占法人地位的国家讨论移民问题是不恰当的。意大利移民法的法律主体就是异乡 人或者说是陌生人，外国人。这个移民主体只是媒体臆造的角色（或者更确切地说是社会学家亚历桑德鲁•拉果（Ａｌｅｓｓａｎｄｒｏ Ｄａｌ Ｌａｇｏ）所称呼的无社会 和法律地位的人）。法律条文和大众传媒皆把意大利描绘成一个被形形色色的异乡人所侵略的国家。这些异乡人没有名字，没有身份，属于他们的唯一空 间就是他们正在穿越的边境。在意大利国人的印象里，这些陌生人只从属于有限的空间，首先是过分拥挤的船只，然后是一入境就以待验证身份为由而被 扣留在的“临时接待中心”。 如果依据最新法律他们能够通过验证或者说不用被遣返回利比亚，他们就会生活在城郊或条件恶劣的城市中心。意大利本 地人很少承认他们和这个新的群体生活在同一个空间里。意籍非洲人是以如此形象传遍世界的：一张张恐惧的男人、女人、孩子的面庞特写，他们或在船 上，或正接近陆地，或正在南部小岛蓝佩杜萨岛登陆。在相关文章、评论甚至文字说明中，他们没有名字，没有国籍，也没有属于自己的故事。他们已经 被媒体转变为一个失去人性的群体。 但是这个故事也有另一个版本，由意籍非洲艺术家们提供的相反的故事，相反的形象。这些艺术家们包括作家、音乐家、演员、导演、录像师、摄影师。 作为一个独立个体或社区不可分割的一部分，他们主动向社区诠释他们是谁，并为社区的快速转型做出贡献。他们也经常与意大利本地艺术家们合作创作 出优秀的文化作品。意籍塞内加尔小说家兼记者、畅销书《我，街头卖象人》（Ｉｏ， ｖｅｎｄｉｔｏｒｅ ｄｉ ｅｌｅｆａｎｔｉ）的作者帕普•库马（Ｐａｐ Ｋｈｏｕｍａ）说，他开 始写作是因为他想打断那些由意大利人自问自答的有关非洲移民的独角戏，通过自己的发言而发起一场对话。１９９０年，与库马的书同时出版的另两本有关 意籍非洲人的叙事文学作品还包括，意籍突尼斯作家萨拉赫•梅萨尼（Ｓａｌａｈ

Ｍｅｔｈａｎｎｉ）的《移民》（Ｉｍｍｉｇｒａｔｏ）和意籍摩洛哥人穆罕默德•布琛（

Ｍｏｈａｍｍｅｄ Ｂｏｕｃｈａｎｅ）的《叫我阿里》（Ｃｈｉａｍａｔｅｍｉ Ａｌì）。在他们的自传体小说中，作者各自讲述了他们作为意籍非洲人的故事，同时也为相遇相交打下 基础，用库马的话说是这是一次对话，这种交往象征性地体现在他们与意大利本地编辑合作著书。借此，这些作家从他们自身但又与众不同的角度，描写 了意大利正在经历的高速变化，但是他们的视野既没有停留于挤在船上的无名氏们身上，也没有给孩子们肿胀的眼睛来个特写，更没有停留在没有国籍的 孕妇们的肚子上。相反，他们作品中的主人公有自己的名字、来历和属于自己的故事。这些故事聚焦主人公横渡地中海来到这片以ｂｅｌ ｐａｅｓｅ（美丽国度 ）著称的土地之后的生活。这三位意籍非洲裔作家的作品及其他接踵而来的作品都讲述了主人公在新家园的日常生活，令人马上联想到新生活与他们的过 去，以及与他们想和新老朋友建立新社区的渴望之间不可割断的联系。这些故事描绘种族歧视，也着墨团结与爱，勾画出一个多层面的、内容丰富的意籍 非洲人社群。非洲人来到意大利定居，他们是这个国家的一部分。他们是欧洲的一部分。在其之前参与策划的一个摄影展的标题中，《非洲：你看我，我 看你》策展人亚旺•安柏（Ａｗａｍ Ａｍｋｐａ）已然声明：“他们不会妥协：非洲人在欧洲”。

如果说《他们不会妥协》摄影展提供了形形色色的欧洲籍非洲人的写照的话，那么《非洲：你看我，我看你》涵盖的范围更大，从欧洲大陆和海外非洲人 聚居区两个层面展示了非洲摄影。但两个展览都有助于反映非洲人跨越时空的身份。正如西非昵称“妈咪卡车”（Ｍａｍｍｙ Ｗａｇｏｎｓ）的敞篷公共汽车广告牌上 标语（此次展览题目“你看我，我看你”的出处）的含义一样：非洲拥有一个受多种注视，运动不止的身份。展览的三个部分都展示了非洲人如何看待自 己和他们希望其他人如何看待他们的愿望。展览的第一部分是几位非洲摄影师的新作，包括摄影室肖像照和海外非洲人聚居区的城市风貌。第二部分主要 是一些旧殖民地时期的肖像照，这些照片充分表达了早期的人类学视角，即非洲是欧洲以外的“其它东西”。作品按照倒序的年代排列，这种设计象征着 至关重要的历史变迁 ：非洲已经从殖民时代的被拍摄对象成为后殖民时代的拍摄主体。这个主体乐于接受其他的注视，其中包括那些欧洲出身的摄影师 的注视。这些欧洲摄影师喜欢扑捉当今的非洲，也经常与非洲艺术家们对话交流并且受到其拍摄技巧的启发。 例如，展览第三部分中的马科•安布罗西（Ｍａｒｃｏ

Ａｍｂｒｏｓｉ）的摄影作品，展示了非非洲艺术家们眼中的非洲。和他的意大利同胞奥尔多•索多马（Ａｌｄｏ

Ｓｏｄｏｍａ）和马泰奥•达内辛（Ｍａｔｔｅｏ Ｄａｎｅｓｉｎ）及其他多位艺术家一样，安布罗西也受到伟大的马里肖像摄影师塞杜•凯塔（Ｓｅｙｄｏｕ Ｋｅïｔａ）的启发，通过 光线和颜色，用视觉语言描绘了从南到北的意籍非洲人社区的日常生活，展示他们在生活中发现的丰富多彩世界。这些摄影师的个人风格、技巧、主题， 还有他们不久前一起度过的一段时光（他们属于同一个群体，以意大利维罗纳为基地），都在新世纪里向一个新社会：意大利社会、欧洲社会，表达着他 们的致意。 这些艺术家的照片互语对话，彼此辉映，加入的还有来自非洲人聚居区的几件作品，比如葡萄牙摄影师阿尔弗雷多•奥利维拉（Ａｌｆｒｅｄｏ

Ｍｕñｏｚ

ｄｅ

Ｏｌｉｖｅｉｒａ）和葆莉娜•皮门特尔（Ｐａｕｌｉａｎａ Ｐｉｍｅｎｔｅｌ），特立尼达岛摄影师扎克•欧维（Ｚａｋ Ｏｖé），美国摄影师莱尔•阿什顿•哈里斯（Ｌｙｌｅ Ａｓｈｔｏｎ Ｈａｒｒｉｓ）和德布•威利斯德（Ｄｅｂ Ｗｉｌｌｉｓ）的作品。作品中的一些图像引发或提出问题，另一些进行回应。有时候它们挑战惯例和权威，但大多数并不如 此：它们深刻发掘照片主体的私人世界。奥尔多•索多马拍摄的一系列令人叹为观止的、五颜六色的家居肖像照则属此类。这些肖像的面孔，眼神，微笑 和姿势都很相似，在维罗纳的不同家居里，讲述着主人公们的混血身份。非洲长袍紧挨着西式服装挂在意大利衣柜里；一幅作品中，一位身着粉色传统长 裙的母亲骄傲炫耀着她的孩子，而在对应的快照中，她穿着家居服，母亲和孩子都直盯着相机镜头；炉子上的一锅汤看起来既像西非炖汤又像意大利云豆 汤。索多马经常并置两个图像，以捕捉同一主体的不同时刻，因此而产生的视觉故事创造了一种主体和观众的亲密感，观者会问自己：正在看我的这个人 是谁？她像我一样的抱着孩子，生活在和我家一样的家里。 同样的感觉也出现在马科•安布罗西华丽的肖像作品里。他和马泰奥•达内辛在意大利一起拍摄了非洲圣灵降临节集会教徒的肖像。达内辛的照片光线明亮 ，活力四射，色彩鲜艳，惟妙惟肖；安布罗西的照片融合了西非照相馆的传统技术和意大利文艺复兴晚期绘画大师的技巧，特别是在光线使用上，这种融 合表现得尤其明显。绣帷装饰的大扶手椅上，坐着身穿传统或西式服装的主角，摄影师借助经典的视觉传统象征性地把这些新意大利人联系起来。正是以 这种方式，达内辛，安布罗西像索多马一样邂逅了这个社会群体及其成员。 安布罗西通过他在尼日利亚小城伊洛林（Ｉｌｏｒｉｎ）拍摄的系列照片，展示了与意籍非洲人的都市景象相反的另一个角度。与他相似的是，达妮埃尔•塔马 尼（Ｄａｎｉｅｌｅ Ｔａｍａｇｎｉ）描绘了一群衣着鲜艳亮丽的纨绔子弟–“巴刚果的绅士” （Ｇｅｎｔｌｅｍｅｎ ｏｆ Ｂａｃｏｎｇｏ ）–的形象，他似乎是在暗示他们的穿衣打扮 方式是一种抗衡仍然大量存在于刚果－布拉柴维尔（Ｂｒａｚｚａｖｉｌｌｅ）的穷困的方式。另一方面，帕翠莎•马伊姆娜•圭雷西（Ｐａｔｒｉｚｉａ Ｍａïｍｏｕｎａ Ｇｕｅｒｒｅｓｉ） 使用黑白影像来表达灵性、神圣和非洲女性的身体。这位出生于意大利的雕塑家兼视觉艺术家采用了一个塞内加尔的中间名字，用来表达她对与之结合的 文化（即其塞内加尔丈夫所属文化）的尊重。 意大利在本次展览中的参与面令人惊讶。更不同寻常的是，来自意大利和葡萄牙的摄影师们被选中，负责拍摄呈现生活在欧洲的非洲人聚居区。安帕和其 他的艺术家共同提醒我们，非洲人聚居区跨越了多重空间，它们跨越的不只是前帝国主义霸权的辖区。非洲，包括其非洲人聚居区，如欧洲一样，是一个 揭示多重视野的综合现实体。只有欧洲最终看到非洲的本质，非洲才会看到欧洲的真实面貌。

P. MaĂ?mouna Gueressi

Stanley Lumax

George Osodi

George Osodi

George Osodi

Kilunje Kia Henda

Kilunje Kia Henda

Delphine Diallo

Hassan Hajjaj

Luis Bastos

Ologeh Otuke Charles

Bartelemi Toguo

BEYOND LAMPEDUSA: AFRICA MEETS EUROPE

by Alessandra Di Maio Beyond Lampedusa: Africa meets Europe

by Alessandra Di Maio Europe and Africa have always been close, geographically and culturally. Long before the recent crossings of millions of migrants from Africa who have endeavored to reach the southern landmarks of Europe that are the island of Lampedusa (Italy’s most Southern point), Gibraltar, or even Ceuta and Melilla, the two Spanish enclaves in Africa, the two ‘old continents’ entertained exchanges of different nature. Italy and Africa, in particular, have always entertained such exchanges. Their commercial routes, histories, myths and legends have intertwined. Who hasn’t been touched by the memorable, unhappy-ending love story between Italy’s founding hero Aeneas and Dido, Queen of Carthage, that lies at the heart of the Aeneid, Italy’s first epic poem? Who has not been in awe when hearing the account of General Hannibal crossing the Alps on his war elephants? Who has not felt heartbroken learning the death of Desdemona and her husband Othello, the valiant Moor of Venice?

In the 1980s, however, Italy and Africa reached an unprecedented proximity with the first waves of massmigration to Europe. People began to arrive in Italy from the Maghreb and Sub-Saharan Africa. Women and men from North, West, East and South Africa found a new home in Italy, a nation that until not long ago was known worldwide for its emigrants and which, in a reversal of history, has finally become a hub for immigration. Those few thousand Africans who initially arrived soon became hundreds of thousands of postcolonial migrant workers entering the gates of the European Union in search of job opportunities and better economic conditions in the first world. They are asylum seekers, refugees fleeing dictatorial regimes and devastating civil wars seeking a safe haven. They come alone or with their families, legally or illegally, all sharing the same wish: to build a better life. And they become Italian, if not strictly by citizenship – in Italy citizenship is transmitted through blood, not birthplace – then surely by culture. Not merely Italian, but also Italian. They are African Italian, and so are their children.

Since the 1980s, the African Italian minority rapidly increased in number and visibility. Like the broader migrant community, this minority has become part of Italy’s national landscape, statistics, and discourse.

Yet this is often a partial, problematic discourse, led primarily by the press, television, the internet and by recent legal texts attempting, often unsuccessfully, to regulate immigration flows. In fact, from a juridical point of view, it is improper to talk about immigration in Italy where the immigrant does not constitute a juridical figure. The legal subject of the Italian ‘immigration’ law is a straniero – a stranger, a foreigner. That of the immigrant is rather a media-constructed persona – or, more precisely, what sociologist Alessandro Dal Lago calls a non-persona. Both legal narratives and the mass-media converge in portraying an Italy ‘invaded’ by hordes of stranieri, amorphous masses of faces with no names, no individual identities, whose only space is that of the crossing, the border. In the Italian national imagery, strangers belong to liminal spaces – first to overcrowded boats, and then to ‘temporary reception centers’, as Italians identify the detention centers in which migrants are held upon arrival. When they do survive the detention center experience, that is, if they are not sent back to Libya by way of the most recent laws, they go to live in the periphery, or in degraded urban centers. Native Italians seldom acknowledge that they share a space with this new community. The images of the African Italian migrants traveling the world portray terrified faces of women, men, children on boats, approaching the mainland, or landing on the small Southern island of Lampedusa.

No names, no nationality, no individual stories appear in the accompanying articles, comments or captions.

They have been transformed into a dehumanized humanity.

Marco Ambrosi

Yet there is another side to this story, a counter-narrative, a counter-image provided by a group of African Italian artists – writers, musicians, actors, directors, video-makers, and photographers – who have taken it upon themselves to explain who they are, as single individuals and as an integral part of a community to whose rapid transformation they contribute. Native Italian artists often collaborate with them in what becomes a joint cultural effort, with remarkable results. Senegalese Italian novelist and journalist Pap Khouma, author of the best-selling I, the Elephant Street-Vendor (Io, venditore di elefanti) explains that he began to write because he wanted to take the floor, interrupt the monologue on African migrants conducted by those Italians who were both asking and answering all the questions, and thereby establish a dialogue.

Khouma’s book was one of the first three extended African Italian narratives published, in 1990, together with Immigrant (Immigrato) by Tunisian Italian writer Salah Methanni, and Call Me Alì (Chiamatemi Alì) by Moroccan Italian Mohammed Bouchane. In their autobiographical texts, these authors tell their own individual stories as African Italian migrants, meanwhile establishing the basis for an encounter – a dialogue, in Khouma’s words – symbolically represented through co-authorship with native Italian editors.

In so doing, these writers portray, from their internal yet idiosyncratic points of view, an Italy undergoing accelerated change. Their vision, however, includes neither nameless bodies packed on overcrowded boats nor close-ups of children’s bulging eyes, nor the pregnant bellies of women without a nation. Instead, their narratives present well-developed characters with their own names, histories and personal stories, focusing on those characters’ lives after the Black Mediterranean crossing, in the land known as the bel paese – the beautiful country. These three African Italian texts, like those that followed, give an account of their protagonists’ every-day lives in a new homeland, evoking at once their unbreakable links with the past and their desire to make new communities with old and new friends. These narratives foreground racism and discrimination, yet also depict solidarity and love, offering an insider’s portrait of a multifaceted, composite African Italian community. Africans in Italy have come to stay. They are part of the new nation. They are part of Europe. Awam Amkpa, master-mind of Africa: See You, See Me!, already made this point clear in the choice of the title for a photography exhibit that he previously co-curated: They Won’t Budge: Africans in Europe.

If They Won’t Budge offers a variety of portraits of African Europeans, Africa: See You, See Me! expands its scope, showcasing African photography from the Continent and the Diaspora. Both exhibits, however, contribute to a reflection over African identity across spaces and times. As implied in the inscription on the billboard on the West African mammy wagon from which the show takes its name – “See you, See Me!”, – that of Africa is an in-motion identity, one that involves a multiplicity of gazes. All three sections of the exposition show how Africans see themselves, and how they want others to see them. While the first section displays recent works by several African photographers, including studio portraits and urban scenes from the Diaspora, the second shows old colonial portraits that indulge in an early ethnographic vision of Africa as Europe’s ‘other’. By reversing it chronologically, this layout signifies a crucial historical passage: from colonial photographed object, the African has become a postcolonial, photographing subject. This subject welcomes and includes ‘other’ gazes, including those of the photographers of European origins interested in portraying today’s Africa, often dialoguing with African artists from whose techniques they may be inspired.

This is the case, for example, of Marco Ambrosi’s photography, included in the third section of the exhibit, showcasing non-African artists’ visions of Africa. Together with Italian fellow-countrymen Aldo Sodoma and Matteo Danesin, Ambrosi, inspired by the great Malian portrait photographer Seydou Keïta, is one of those artists who have portrayed the everyday life of the African Italian community from North to South in visual narratives created through color and light, suggesting the rich variety of the worlds they have come across in their lives. These photographers’ individual styles, techniques, and subjects, as well as their shared recent history – they are part of the same collective, based in Verona, Italy – pay homage to a new society: the Italian, and the European, in the global millennium.

These artists’ photographs are in conversation with one another and with those of several other works from the Diaspora, such as those by Alfredo Muñoz de Oliveira and Pauliana Pimentel from Portugal, Zak Ové from Trinidad, and Lyle Ashton Harris and Deb Willis from the USA. Some of these images elicit or pose questions, others provide responses. At times they defy convention and authority, but more often than not, they invite an insightful exploration of their subjects’ private world. In the latter category is the spectacular, colorful series of domestic portraits by Aldo Sodoma whose faces, glances, smiles and postures in a familiar setting – at home in Verona – speak of his subjects’ hybrid identities. African gowns hang next to Western clothes in Italian wardrobes; in one portrait, a mother traditionally dressed in pink proudly shows off her baby, while in the matching snapshot she wears casual attire as both mother and baby gaze directly at the camera, a pot of what may look either like West Africa stew or Italian legume soup on the stove. Sodoma often juxtaposes two images, capturing his same subjects at different private moments. The resulting visual narrative creates a sense of intimacy between subjects and spectators who are invited to ask themselves: who is this person watching me, holding her baby as I do, living in a home like mine?

Marco Ambrosi

Matteo Danesin

Likewise, the sumptuous portraits by Marco Ambrosi, who, with Matteo Danesin, photographed members of the African Pentecostal community in Italy: while Danesin’s snapshots are bright, dynamic, colorful, rendered in a wide, embracing format, Ambrosi’s pictures combine the West African photo studio tradition with the techniques of Italy’s late renaissance maestri, especially in their use of light. The symbolic presence of the large, tapestried armchair on which the protagonists sit, dressed traditionally or in Western clothes, symbolically links these new Italians with the classical visual tradition. In this way, Danesin and Ambrosi, like Sodoma, encounter both a community and its individual members.

Similarly to Ambrosi, who offers a reversed angle of the African Italian urban landscape in his series of shots taken in the Nigerian town of Ilorin, Daniele Tamagni portrays a group of dandy “Gentlemen of Bacongo”, whose glamorous, bright-colored look, he seems to suggests, is a way to resist the still largely spread destitution of their native Congo-Brazzaville. Patrizia Maïmouna Guerresi, on the other hand, uses black and white to articulate spirituality, sacredness, and the female African body. Born in Italy, this sculptor and visual artist has adopted a Senegalese middle name as homage to the culture she espoused, that of her Senegalese husband.

It is impressive to note the extent to which Italy is present in this show. Even more remarkable is the fact that photographers from Italy and Portugal have been chosen to represent the African Diaspora in Europe.

Amkpa, together with his artists, remind us that the Diaspora crosses multiple spaces, not only the territories of the former hegemonic imperial powers. Africa, including its Diaspora, like Europe, is a complex reality, invoking a plurality of visions. Only if Europe finally sees Africa for what it is, Africa will see Europe for what it has become.

Matteo Danesin

Aldo Sodoma

Alfredo Mu単oz de Oliveira

Alfredo Mu単oz de Oliveira

Lyle Ashton Harris

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN LYLE ASHTON HARRIS and SENAM OKUDZETO Accra, Ghana, 2007 莱尔•阿什顿•哈里斯（Lyle Ashton Harris）与萨那蒙•欧库兹托 (Senam Okudzeto）的对话（加纳阿克拉，２００７年）

萨那蒙•欧库兹托： 莱尔，对你的装置《爆炸》（Ｂｌｏｗ Ｕｐ）我非常着迷。记得你早期的自拍像作品都非常简单，肖像性和自我指认性也很强，但在这些新 的作品里，你似乎是在通过其他人的图像来表达自己。作品的表达似乎呈现出一种精心设计的凌乱，从“马奈的奥林匹亚”，意大利暴动警察到西班牙斗 牛，似乎这些指代符号都是随意的出现，但是由于了解你，我想其中必定存在特别的关联。你能解释一下是什么使你开始运用这种全新的表达方式？对 你来说这是否标志着一种在实践中或意识中的个人转变？ 莱尔•阿什顿•哈里斯： 我做珂拉琪（Ｃｏｌｌａｇｅ）拼贴照片已经很多年了，例如１９９６年开始的“浇水孔”照片集锦，２００２年开始的《宝丽来之哈德里安的记 忆》（ Ｍｅｍｏｉｒｓ ｏｆ Ｈａｄｒｉａｎ Ｐｏｌａｒｏｉｄ）快照集锦，但是《爆炸》对我来说是一个全新的领域。这么说也许并不完全准确，因为我的确做墙壁照片拼贴画很 多年了，但我通常都会在把拼贴作品拍照记录后就拆除，它们从来没有被公开展览过。我也一直为了能够在摄影室以外的地方展出这些作品努力奋斗着 ，直到有一天，我的好朋友吉姆•霍奇斯建议我带着我的“杀手锏”去芝加哥我才有了这样的机会。在芝加哥，我要筹备一场意大利式人浪壁画和“罗马 陌生人”作品的展览。我记得经纪人罗娜•霍夫曼开玩笑地对我说，我在用最能为我赚钱卖出作品的墙上展示一些根本卖不出去的作品。这就是我的首次 公开的照片墙展：《爆炸Ｉ（芝加哥），２００４》。而这种工作方式最棒的地方在于它允许我使用过去二十几年来收集和创作的各类作品。我终于找到了一 种既不用提炼单一图像，又可以一次表达很多东西的方式。 萨： 所以，我的理解是，多种元素结合成了一件单一的作品。在这些元素中，有没有比其他更需要特别解译的图像呢 ？ 莱： “爆炸”的核心作品是一张现成的整幅阿迪达斯广告。这张广告是我在２００１年意大利最大的体育报纸《体育日报》上偶然看到的。当时我在为纽约 时代周刊有关种族主义和意大利足球的照片集搜集资料。广告呈现的是，声名一朝丧尽的法国球星齐达内正在接受一名身份不明的棕色皮肤模特的修脚 服务。齐达内由于在２００６年世界杯上不理智的用头撞人而被罚出场，使法国队与冠军失之交臂。广告中二人的姿势很明显就是给马奈的名画《奥林匹亚 》来了个后现代主义的扭曲处理。即使在我最狂野的梦里，也不可能创作出如此奇怪和挑逗性如此强烈的图像作品。正是这些各种各样别出心裁的鬼马 之作－我所邂逅的当代视觉领域中的素材－为我的珂拉琪拼贴创作提供了灵感和动力，所以我会一直努力的寻找更多这类素材。 萨： 我很高兴你跟我解释那个图像，我也被它深深的吸引了，但吸引我的还有它和《奥林匹亚》之间的联系。我当时还特意多看了几遍，以确定照片中 不明身份的那个人不是你，因为你们的确有几分相似之处。这种相似性让我觉得特别不安，尤其是黑色主角流露出了一种似乎享受对白人卑躬屈膝的奴 性。这张照片让我领会到视差在你的作品中的重要性：不同的文化背景会影响观众对同一作品产生不同的解读。我一看它就产生了一种不安的﹑政治上 错误的性冲动， 一种种族化的主宰与屈从的构想。这种想法格外真实，令我深思且不安的是，即使是政治正确本身也经常存在问题甚至没有正确可言。 然而你又提醒了我齐达内本人是北非人，这又说明即使他的“白色人种”身份也不是一成不变的。 越是深入了解这幅作品我就越加不安， 我竟觉得除了 作品本身是在不断变化的这一点可以确定外，其它一切都是不确定的。 １９９４年，亚瑟•弗拉纳金•圣奥宾（Ａｒｔｈｕｒ Ｆｌａｎｎａｇｉｎ Ｓａｉｎｔ－Ａｕｂｉｎ）在文章《特里底里（Ｔｅｓｔｅｒｉａ）式雄性狂乱：黑人在白人至上父权统治文化中的痛苦 》中发起了一场复杂的讨论，旨在把黑人男性的主体性添加到拉冈的本体理论中。圣奥宾认为“阳刚性和心理分析可以被看做同一论题”。我认为这种 新的性理论正和你的作品产生了共鸣，因为你的作品对心理反应和阳刚性进行了深刻地发掘。圣奥宾的理论强调，黑人男性的性从白人男性的性所衍生 ，他利用拉冈逻辑推断出黑人和白人之所以相互妥协并发生同性关系是由于他们对于彼此的欲望：白人男性渴望黑人男子的健壮体魄而黑人男性渴望白 人男性的权利。这种逻辑在白人主宰的后奴隶社会背景下起了更大的作用，例如美国就是一个依据种族划分而发展起来的社会，在美国，相对于欧洲大 陆而言种族划分就更敏感的演变为了性禁忌，也许这就是为什么齐达内和他的年轻侍从的广告能够在最受欢迎的意大利体育报纸上刊登而没有引起什么 争议，但了解你这件拼贴作品背景的国际观众们却因此瞠目结舌。

我再次提起圣奥宾的论调是因为《爆炸》的构成元素代表了许多不同的、社会的、文化的、种族的阳刚气质，这种阳刚性不可被简单的分类，尤其在需 要对性进行清晰的定义时。齐达内的形象使得为其服务的黑人男子在他面前阳刚尽失，对其极之顺从；两个男人之间明显的轻松和亲密让人感觉到，因 为海报上黑人的被动，对黑人角色的矮化越加强烈。但是也有与此种简单解读相矛盾的形像：两个美丽的裸体黑人男子接吻，意大利防暴警察，迈克尔• 杰克逊，独断专行的意大利总理贝鲁斯科尼，你身着女子服装的自拍照，黑人文化英雄偶像，总使异性恋男人驻足凝视的妖艳黑人／白人女性，体育场或 是演唱会上成群的球迷，还有一些在阿克拉拍到的很棒的非洲男人肖像照。依据圣奥宾的“阳刚性和心理分析可以被看做同一论题”，观众会意识到你 作品中变化多元的阳刚气质，并且会试图去解构他／她自己。我能想象《爆炸》系列作品的观众会有一种被迫去对抗一个图像的感觉，这个图像使他们质 疑他们对阳刚的既有认识，从而质疑与之相关的自我感知。 莱：我对这种错觉很感兴趣，一张图片、一个文本就能招致评论，也能带来愉悦—这个阿迪达斯广告甚至使我对着报纸自慰。更重要的是，我很期待看 到这张现成的借用图像将会在逐步升级的国际体坛（种族化了的）同性恋高度商品化进程中掀起怎样的波澜。我还好奇，竟然没有人讨论，是什么使齐 达内竟然乐意扮演广告中的角色。 所以，进一步描述 《爆炸》的场景和演变是很重要的。继芝加哥首展之后，它相继在不同场合展出：先于２００５年《爆炸Ⅱ》（纽约）在纽约兵工厂（Ｎｅｗ Ｙｏｒｋ Ａｒｍｏｒｙ）展出，接着《爆炸Ⅲ》（锡耶纳）在锡耶纳教宗宫殿举办的身份和游牧展中作特别展览，最后一次是２００６年在塞维利亚的《爆炸ＩＶ》装置 ，它还被欧库伊•恩威佐（Ｏｗｋｕｉ Ｅｎｗｅｚｏｒ）选入“不同凡响，塞维利亚当代艺术双年展” （Ｕｎｈｏｍｅｌｙ， Ｂｉｅｎａｌ ｄｅ Ａｒｔｅ Ｃｏｎｔｅｍｐｏｒａｎｅｏ ｄｅ Ｓｅｖｉｌａ）， 之后又被一西班牙博物馆收藏。对于每个展出地所在的城市及国家的建筑空间及政治和文化氛围，这四个柯拉琪作品都引起了明显不同的反应。 我经常把我在过去几年在生活过的不同地方（纽约、罗马、阿克拉）收集的素材也都放到作品中。《爆炸Ｉ》（芝加哥）中有丰富的剪报、杂志封面，以 及一些我做的珂拉琪拼贴，它们都是有关伊拉克战争及嘲怒精神性虐待，这种虐待现象在“反恐战争”－其代名词是阿布格莱布监狱－已经很普遍。 在《爆炸Ⅱ》（纽约）中，展览的仍然是这些图像，但是我对照片的位置进行了重新调整，并层层叠叠、密密地加入了很多黑人天才的图片，意在表达 黑人的传奇事迹，如比莉•荷莉戴（Ｂｉｌｌｉｅ Ｈｏｌｉｄａｙ）、罗马勒•比尔敦（Ｒｏｍａｒｅ Ｂｅａｒｄｅｎ）、迈克尔•杰克逊、费德立克•道格拉斯（Ｆｒｅｄｅｒｉｃｋ Ｄｏｕｇｌａｓ）、休• 纽顿（Ｈｕｅｙ Ｎｅｗｔｏｎ）等等，这使“齐达内／奥林匹亚”这单幅在作品中的核心地位不大明显。 此外，性暗示也由于印在两个人身上的字体而加强，齐达内 身上刻着ＤＬ（ｄｏｗｎ ｌｏｗ：俯身贴近）字样，而为他服务的不明身份的男子身上则刻着ＲＯ（ｒｏｍａｎｔｉｃ ｏｂｓｅｓｓｉｖｅ：浪漫痴情）字样。 最后一次展出《爆炸ＩＶ》（塞维利亚），大概也是挑衅性和层次感最强的。齐达内和奴婢海报已经被畸形的放大到１０×８英尺。只有在加纳葬礼上才用的 头骨图案的布料，暴动的意大利球迷的大照片，有关荷兰石油贸易公司商船在科特迪瓦阿比让倾倒有毒废物的灾难性事件的剪报，以及报道蔓延欧洲各 地的种族主义和排外主义狂潮的详细剪报，密密麻麻地分布在装置上。 所以，在《爆炸》的语境里，你可以把借用过来的齐达内图像看作是勾引的隐喻，它要作出勾引，就先要引人注意，然后要面对观者，尤其是欧洲的观 看者，如你所说的，可能对这种黑人的或“黑人般的”意象的批评不会那么严厉。 萨： 在加纳你是否公开了你的同性恋身份？在那里，你们有没有所谓的社群？ 莱：在阿克拉， 存在一定程度的“出柜”公开性取向，因为同性恋在公众场合是被刻意回避的。人们把同性恋看成是一种罪恶且是违法的。这正和阿克 拉不引人注意的同性恋地下社群形成了鲜明的对比：在这个群体里，非洲男性与其他非洲男性发生关系，在俱乐部交往。我知道的几个例子，他们已经 对家人公开了自己的身份，在以异性性服务占优势的阿克拉旅游业中，他们并不如人们所认定的那样，只“为白人男性服务”。也就是说，对于在高级 的郁金香阿克拉旅馆享用这项 “私密服务”的客人，那是一回事，但是，我和我“朋友”在旅馆泳池旁的躺椅上休息又是另一回事。不过，尽管阿克拉 一向是探讨这些话题的一个激烈的社会空间，我仍然觉得这里还算是安全的。 事实上，今年九月是同性恋大会一周年纪念，大会本该是在阿克拉举行的。 我还清清楚地记得，当时是２００６年９月２日，我正开着车在阿克拉四处闲逛， 一看到“每日画报”（Ｄａｉｌｙ Ｇｒａｐｈｉｃ）上面的标题“同性恋怒气冲天”，我立即就陷入了一种高度偏执的精神状态，我十分肯定当时女管家几乎要向警 察举报我们了。 我不知道我的脑子里是不是有很多这样的想法，但是圣阿宾在心理学术语中解释得很清楚：感情投入时，实际和想象的惩罚（阉割）之间，现实和虚幻 之间，并没有什么的区别。我认为大部分异性恋者或者是暗地里的同性恋者，并不能够了解这种心灵上的重创。不知道你是否可以把我去年的经历和你 在２０世纪７０、８０年代可能经历的加纳政治骚乱带来的恐惧对比一下？ 萨：我亲历了２０世纪７０年代和８０年代早期的加纳和尼日利亚政变，而且作为一个小孩子，我同样承受着被骚扰与家人被逮捕的心灵创伤。但我觉得“恐 怖”一词并不贴切。在当时，社会稳定并不是理所当然的，虽然承受着巨大的危险和恐惧，人们却难以置信的平静，甚至坚忍。 此外，政治动乱发生时 ，这个民族都遭受着灾难，每个人的生活都被搅乱了，每个人都没有自由，每个人都活在宵禁的日子里。你所谈论的只是看不见的一少部分人，他们只 是要求他们还没有被承认的公民权利。 我依然记得去年的报纸报道简直歇斯底里，充满了敌意。的确很令人震惊，尤其是那里竟然没有公开的同性恋群体。我相信普通加纳人根本就没想过要 和同性恋接触，所以这种气愤甚至是毫无理由的。令人沮丧的是，我记得没有一个人哪怕是尝试维护同性恋的权利。但我认为这样的事件恰恰与阿克拉 市区的生活形成含蓄的对比：在阿克拉市区，你能找到一个非洲同性恋社群，但是，尽管已经存在了很长时间，它仍然像根本不存在一样不被国家认可

这又把我们带回到了非洲本身的问题上。我们早些时候的讨论是围绕“非洲与现代化”的概念。我相信，你拍摄的加纳系列照片记录了一些媒体漏掉的 当代非洲生活影像。当年你在加纳从“Ｓｃｏｔｔ客栈”租了一间房舍，这家客栈可以说是早期现代主义的里程碑，女主人是联合国的重要顾问、大使，毫无 疑问也是阿克拉社会的重要人物。你丰富的社会阅历也贯穿于阿克拉的图像中，一方面你融入到加纳社会精英群体中，另一方面又亲自探索阿克拉平民 的日常生活。我记得有一次我们参加巴西大使馆的晚宴，你拍摄了一组了不起的社会精英写实照，在我看来，这些图像值得加纳国家档案馆收藏。我把 这些图像与更令人着迷的城市劳动阶层的图像进行了对比。这些劳动阶层包括了阿卡拉市场上打手机的女人们，在Ｓｃｏｔｔ 客栈工作的正在嬉戏的年轻看 门人和男客房服务员。 这些阿克拉劳动阶层的形象使人们对于非洲贫困的观念变得复杂，它们甚至比你那些社会精英的肖像照更有力量。的确，这些人很穷，但是他们也享受 生活和娱乐，这些图像里所展示的物质文化，尤其是那些举着手机的女人们，在提醒我们：她们也和我们其他人一样生活在全球通讯系统下的资本主义 大环境下。我认为，正是你这种能够发掘这些容易被忽视的图像的能力，使我觉得你比大多数旅客更贴近本土文化。

莱：我还记得第一次去阿克拉的Ｂｕｓｙ Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ时的情景，我被那里的景象完全吸引住了：许多年轻时髦的非洲男女在上网，肤色深浅不一，发型各异， 仪态万千；其中星星点点的有几个欧洲人、亚洲人和中东人。我当时接受纽约时代周刊委托，正在创作加纳手机摄影系列，在作品中我的确表达了这种 现代化的感觉。 无论是市场上带着黄绿色卷发夹卖青椒的女人，还是不断闯进我相机镜头的Ｓｃｏｔｔ客栈的看门人丹尼尔，有一点很清楚的是，这些人已经充分意识到了全 球媒体带来的注视，时尚，姿势。我很想知道影响又是什么？是否如２０世纪６０、７０年代詹姆斯•布朗（Ｊａｍｅｓ Ｂｒｏｗｎ）的唱片对于马利克•西迪贝（Ｍａｌｉｋ Ｓｉｄｉｂｅ）在巴马科的拍摄主体的影响一样，Ｈｉｐ Ｈｏｐ， ＭＴＶ 和ＤＳＴＶ也影响了当今的阿克拉？ 萨：你现在每年都有一学期在位于阿卡拉的纽约大学加纳校区任教。除此之外，你在非洲还有什么其它的经历吗？你又怎样看待你与非洲大陆的关系？ 莱：我第一次来非洲，是１９７４年，与母亲和弟弟在坦桑尼亚达的斯萨拉姆（Ｄａｒ ｅｓ Ｓａｌａａｍ）生活了几年。１９７９年我和母亲再次回到非洲，她是来拜访我 继父在南非布隆方丹（Ｂｌｏｅｍｆｏｎｔｅｉｎ）的家人。当时正是种族隔离政策的高峰期，我本该和她一起去布隆方丹的，但是考虑到可能存在的危险，母亲让 我在毛里塔尼亚的努瓦克肖特（Ｎｏｕａｋｃｈｏｔｔ）下了车，她在自己最好的朋友家住了很多年，她的朋友嫁的是美国国务院ＡＩＤ的副主任。我那次在非洲呆了 不到一个月。 尽管我母亲在南非只住了６个星期， 却要一次次地穿过莱索托边境，因为发给来自第一世界国家的黑人的“荣誉白人签证”只有１０天的有 效期，而且每次她过境后，南非警察都会来我继父家进行讯问。所以我猜，她认为当时的环境并不适合带我在同去那里。 我再次来非洲是２００１年，当时是去南非悼念我继父， 然后次年我又返回参加了他的墓碑落成仪式。 但是直到２００５年我去加纳，才是我第一次没和家人一起的个人非洲之行。对我来说，加纳之行曾经是而且一直会是非凡的经历。你也知道，在那里遇到 你使我的行程更特别更舒服。我经常跟人们说在纽约或罗马我能得到的东西，在阿克拉我也能得到，如不能轻易得到的话，就说明我并不需要它。我不 知道为什么我会如此喜欢加纳。大概是因为我当时就像２０世纪二、三十年代在巴黎寻找家的海外黑人一样，也在寻找我自己的家。 我感到了一种接纳， 一种意愿和一种想去了解更多的加纳文化和人民的愿望。我很享受成为阿克拉国际群体中的一员，因为在这里， “非洲特性”和现代化的观念是亲切的 、无需解释的。

“莱尔•阿什顿•哈里斯与萨那蒙•欧库兹托的对话， 加纳，阿克拉，２００７年”，摘自莱尔•阿什顿•哈里斯《爆炸，２００８》（Ｂｌｏｗ Ｕｐ， ２００８）， Ｃｏｂｌｅｎｔｚ， Ｃａｓｓａｎｄｒａ 卡桑德拉文集，作者：Ｋｗａｍｅ Ａｎｔｈｏｎｙ Ａｐｐｉａｈ， Ｌｙｌｅ Ａｓｈｔｏｎ Ｈａｒｒｉｓ， Ｓｕｓａｎ Ｋｒａｎｅ， Ｓａｒａｈ Ｌｅｗｉｓ， Ｓｅｎａｍ Ｏｋｕｄｚｅｔｏ 斯科茨代尔（美国）：斯科茨代尔当代艺术博物馆 纽约：Ｇｒｅｇｏｒｙ Ｒ Ｍｉｌｌｅｒ ＆ Ｃｏｍｐａｎｙ

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN LYLE ASHTON HARRIS and SENAM OKUDZETO Accra, Ghana, 2007

Senam Okudzeto: Lyle, I am fascinated by the Blow Up installation. I remember your earlier works as simple self-portraits, very iconic and self-referential. However, in these new works, you seem to encode your presence through images of others; there is a deliberate and intriguing chaos in the presentation. Seemingly random references appear, from Manet’s Olympia to Italian riot police and Spanish bullfights, yet, knowing you, I realize that very specific linkages are being made. Can you tell me what brought you to this new style of presentation, and if it marks a personal shift in practice or awareness for you?

Lyle Ashton Harris: I have been making collages for years—for example, The Watering Hole photomontages from 1996 and the Memoirs of Hadrian Polaroid montages from 2002—but Blow Up was new territory for me. Perhaps that is not exactly accurate, as I had been making wall collages for years but I would eventually dismantle them, usually after I photographed them. They were never exhibited publicly. It wasn’t until I was struggling with how to bring this energy out of the studio that my good friend Jim Hodges suggested I take my “bag of tricks” with me to Chicago, where I was about to mount a show of the Italian crowd murals as well as the Roman Strangers works. I remember my dealer Rhona Hoffman jokingly saying that I was using the “money” wall to display something that would not sell, namely my first public wall collage: Blow Up I (Chicago), 2004. What was great about this way of working was that it allowed me to engage disparate images I had been either collecting or creating for more that twenty years. I had finally found a means to say many things at once as opposed to distilling them into single images.

SO: So, as I understand it, these multiple composites constitute a single work. Within them, are there any images that beg decoding more than others?

LAH: The center piece of Blow Up is a ready-made that was a full-page Adidas advertisement I encountered in La Gazzetta dello Sport—the leading Italian sports daily newspaper—in 2001, while doing research for a photo essay on racism and Italian soccer for The New York Times Magazine. This advertisement shows the now infamous [for a head-butting incident that cost France the 2006 World Cup] soccer player Zinadine Zidane receiving a “pedicure” by an unidentified brown-skinned model in a pose that is obviously a postmodern twist on Manet’s Olympia. In my wildest dreams, I would not have imagined creating such an intensely strange, provocative image. Encountering these kinds of slippages—found materials in the contemporary visual landscape—has provided the marrow for much of my collage work. I am always on the hunt for them.

SO: I am so glad you explained that image; the eye is continually drawn to it, and even to the obvious association with Olympia. I had to look more than once to make sure the “unidentified” model wasn’t you, as there is more than a passing resemblance. This resemblance makes the photo particularly discomforting, because of the seemingly joyful servility the black subject exhibits in relation to the “white” man he is tending to. This image signals to me the importance of parallax in your work: how the shifting (cultural) position of the viewer produces multiple readings of an image. At first glance, the photo evokes a disturbing and politically incorrect sexual dynamic, a very racialized dominant-submissive construct. It seems so real, and I am left pondering the unsettling fact that political correctness often goes out the window in the bedroom.

But then you remind me that Zidane is a North African and therefore even his “whiteness” is a fluctuating construct. I become doubly uncomfortable for reading too far into the image. I’m left feeling that nothing is certain except that the images are in constant flux.

In “Testeria: The Dis-ease of Black Men in White Supremacist, Patriarchal Culture,” 1994, Arthur Flannagin Saint-Aubin puts forth a complex argument that attempts the insertion of black male subjectivity into Lacanian critiques of identity. Saint-Aubin maintains that “masculinity and psychoanalysis can be thought of as one and the same discourse”—and I think this new critique of sexuality resonates with your work, which is deeply psychological and explores masculinity. Saint-Aubin’s argument insists upon black male sexuality as an invented component of white male sexuality, and, using Lacanian logic, creates a “homosocial” relation between black men and white men in terms of mutual desire, whereby white male belief in black male virility is a desire compounded by black male belief in white power. This logic functions more powerfully in the context of a white dominated post-slavery society such as in the United States, a society that thrives on racial classifications and is arguably more sensitively tuned in to sexual taboos than that of continental Europe, which is perhaps why the image of Zidane and his young attendant could be published in a popular Italian sports newspaper without causing so much as a flutter, but leaves international art audiences agape in the context of your collage.

I wanted to raise Saint-Aubin’s argument because the component elements of Blow Up represent a number of different, social, cultural and racial masculinities, which do not permit a simple classification, especially when one seeks a clear definition of sexuality. The image of Zidane provokes an image of hyper-castration in regards to its servile black subject, the relaxed intimacy apparent between the two men, making the degradation of this black subject all the more violent because of the passiveness of the black figure. But there are images that contradict this simple reading of black masculinity at the service of white—images of queerness, two beautiful nude black men kissing, Italian riot police, Michael Jackson, autocratic Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, self- portraits in spectral drag, figures of iconic black cultural heroes, seductive women—black and white that invoke the heterosexual male gaze, crowds of soccer fans in stadiums, in concert with the wonderful portraits of African men shot in Accra. Remembering Saint-Aubin’s assertion that “masculinity and psychoanalysis can be thought of as one and the same discourse,” one realizes that the multiple, unfixed representations of masculinities in your work ask the viewer to deconstruct him- or herself. I can’t imagine that viewers could walk through a presentation of the Blow Up series without at some point being forced to confront an image that makes them question their perceived sense of masculinity and, by extension, their sense of self in relation to that perception.

LAH: I’m interested in such slippages, how an image, a text, can provoke critique as well as arouse pleasure—hence the ejaculation of my semen on the original newsprint Adidas ad. More importantly, I am interested in how this “ready-made” ups the ante on the escalating hyper-commodification of (racialized) homoeroticism and homosociality in the arena of international sports, and curious about the absence of discussion concerning Zidane’s willingness to play this role.

That said, it is important to delineate further the conditions and the evolution of Blow Up. After its Chicago premiere, its next iteration, Blow Up II (New York), made an appearance at the New York Armory in 2005.

Blow Up III (Siena) was featured in the IDENTITA & nomadismo exhibition at the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena in 2005. The final installment, Blow Up IV (Seville), was selected by Owkui Enwezor for The Unhomely, Bienal de Arte Contemporaneo de Sevila, in 2006, and then was acquired by a museum in Spain. Each of the four collages is distinctly different, responding to the architectural space as well as the political and cultural climate of the city or country in which it was exhibited.

I often include materials I’ve collected from the different geographical locations I’ve lived in over the past several years, be that New York, Rome or Accra. In Blow Up I (Chicago), there is an abundance of newspaper clips, magazine covers and smaller collages I constructed that reference the war in Iraq and tease at the unspoken psychosexual sadism that has permeated the “war on terror”—namely Abu Ghraib.

In Blow Up II (New York), these images are still present but reconfigured and more densely layered with images that suggest the legacy of black genius, such as Billie Holiday, Romare Bearden, Michael Jackson, Frederick Douglas, Huey Newton and others that obscure the centrality of the Zidane/Olympia. In addition, the sexual quotient has been turned up with the letters DL (down low) stenciled on the Zidane figure and the letters RO (romantic obsessive) stenciled on the unidentified figure ministering to him.

Blow Up IV (Seville), the final instalment, is perhaps the most formally aggressive—and layered—in that the Zidane odalisque advertisement has been blown up to monstrous proportions—10-by-8 feet—and is replete with cut-outs of a Ghanaian funerary textile with skull motifs, large photos of riotous Italian soccer crowds and newspaper clippings of the then current catastrophic dumping of toxins in Abidjan, Côte d’lvoire, by a Dutch petroleum trading vessel, among many other clippings detailing the surge in racism and xenophobia across Europe.

So, one could read the Zidane ready-made, in the context of Blow Up, as a trope of seduction in which to first engage and then confront the viewer, particularly a European viewer who, as you pointed out, might be less critical of such sambolian or “Sambo-esque” imagery.

SO: Are you “out” in Ghana? Do you have a community there, so to speak?

LAH: There are degrees of being “out” in Accra as the public face of homosexuality is shunned; it is considered a sin and the practice of it is against the law. This is in stark contrast to the discreet indigenous “gay” underground community of Accra in which African men are having sex/relationships with other African men, socialize in clubs and, in a few cases I know, are “out” to their families, and not just “servicing white men,” as is commonly presumed in the predominantly straight-sex tourism of Accra. That said, it is one thing for guests of the upscale Golden Tulip Accra hotel to “order in,” but it is a very different matter for me and my “friend” to lounge at the hotel pool. Nevertheless, although Accra has been an intense social space in which to navigate these issues, I do feel a certain safety there.

In fact, this September marks the one-year anniversary of the gay and lesbian conference that was supposedly scheduled to take place in Accra. I can clearly recall seeing the headline “Gays and Lesbians on Fire” on the cover of The Daily Graphic while driving around Accra on September 2, 2006. I reacted by falling into a hyper, paranoid mental state and I was certain that the housekeeper was going to call the police on us.

I don’t know whether or not a lot of this was in my head, but Saint-Aubin makes clear that in psychological terms there is little difference between the factual and imagined punishment (castration), between truth and fiction, when there is emotional investment. I don’t think most people who lead straight or closeted lives understand this kind of psychic trauma. I wonder whether you could make a comparison between what I experienced last year and the kind of terror you might have experienced during the tumultuous political climate and regimes in Ghana in the 1970s and 1980s?

SO: I lived through the Ghanaian and Nigerian coups of the 1970s and early 1980s and suffered the trauma of harassment and arrest with my family as a very young child. But I don’t think the word “terror” is appropriate. Social stability was not something people took for granted back then, and despite the immense danger and fear, people were incredibly calm, even stoic. Furthermore, in times of political upheaval, the entire nation suffers, everyone’s lives are disrupted, everyone loses freedom, and everyone is under curfew.

The events you are talking about targeted a small and invisible minority, who were asking for civil rights that they have yet to be granted.

I remember the hysteria in the papers last year, and the pure venom. It was really shocking, especially as there is no “out” gay community. I can’t believe the average Ghanaian has ever been conscious of coming into contact with someone who is gay. So the anger was not even based on knowledge. It was so disappointing; I don’t remember anyone even trying to defend gay rights. But I suppose such incidents mark the implicit contrast of living in urban Accra, where you can find an African gay community, yet within a country that denies such a community exists so long as it pretends not to be there.

This brings me to the question of Africa itself. Our earlier discussions of your work have revolved around concepts of “Africa and modernity.” I believe that your Ghana photos provide some narratives missing from the media’s portrait of contemporary African life. When you were in Ghana, you rented the guest cottage at “Scott House,” an early modernist landmark, belonging to a woman who is an important United Nations advisor, ambassador and arguably the grande dame of Accra society. Your Accra images span your multiple social experiences, on the one hand mingling with the Ghanaian social elite and, on the other, personally exploring everyday Accra life. I remember that night we were at the Brazilian Embassy dinner: you took an incredible set of portraits of the political elite—images that the national archive of Ghana should have on file. I contrast these with the even more fascinating images of the urban working class, such as women in an Accra market using cell phones, and the young watchman and houseboy at Scott House engaged in horseplay.

These images of Accra’s working class complicate the popular perception of poverty in Africa even more than your portraits of the elite. Yes, these people are poor, but they have a sense of life and play, and the material culture represented in these images, especially those of women holding up their cell phones, reminds us that they, too, like the rest of us, live in a capitalist matrix of global communication. I think it’s your ability to provide these missing images that makes me feel you are closer to the culture than most visitors.

LAH: I remember the first time I went to Busy Internet in Accra and was taken by what seemed like a vision of scores of young, hip African men and woman online, with multiple shades of skin tones and hair styles and textures; a few European, Asian and Middle Easterners were sprinkled among them. It was this sense of modernity that I explored in the Ghanaian cell phone series commission for The New York Times Magazine.

Deb Willis

Deb Willis

Whether it’s the market woman wearing chartreuse curlers and selling green peppers or Daniel, the young watchman at Scott House who continually engaged in a pas de deux with my camera, it is clear that these people are very aware of the gaze, the style, the gesture that are very much informed by global media. I do wonder what the influences are? Are Hip Hop, MTV and DSTV to present-day Accra what James Brown records were to Malik Sidibe subjects in Bamako in the 1960s and 1970s?

SO: You now spend one semester a year as a professor at New York University’s Ghana site in Accra. What other experiences have you had in Africa, and how would you describe your relationship to the continent?

LAH: I first traveled to Africa in 1974 and lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with my mother and brother for a couple of years. I returned to Africa in 1979 with my mother, who was going to visit my stepfather’s family in Bloemfontein, South Africa, during the height of Apartheid. Initially, I was supposed to go with her, but in the end they felt it would be potentially dangerous. Instead, my mother dropped me off in Nouakchott, Mauritania, to stay with her best friend of many years, who was married to the deputy director of AID – US State Department. I was there for about a month. Although my mother spent six weeks in South Africa, she had repeatedly to cross the Lesotho border as the “honorary white visa” [given to blacks visiting from firstworld countries] was good for only ten days. Each time she crossed the border, the South African police would come and interrogate my stepfather’s family. So I guess my mother decided this was not the climate to take me to.

My next visit to Africa was in 2000 when I went to South Africa for my stepfather’s memorial. I returned the following year for the unveiling of his tombstone.

But it wasn’t until I went to Ghana in 2005 that I first visited Africa independent of my family. Ghana was and continues to be a remarkable experience for me. And as you know, meeting you has made my time here that much more special and comfortable. I often tell people that whatever I can get in New York or Rome I can get in Accra and if I can’t get it easily, it means I don’t need it. I am not sure why I took to Ghana the way I did. Perhaps I was looking for home in the way black expatriates were looking for home in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. I feel an acceptance and a willingness and desire to know more of the culture and people.

I enjoy being among an international crowd in Accra where ideas of African-ness and modernity are something familiar as opposed to having to be explained.

"A Conversation: Lyle Ashton Harris and Senam Okudzeto, Accra, Ghana, 2007." Excepted from Lyle Ashton Harris: Blow Up, 2008, Coblentz, Cassandra with essays by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Lyle Ashton Harris, Susan Krane, Sarah Lewis, Senam Okudzeto. . Scottsdale: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. New York: Gregory R Miller & Company.

Hank Willis Thomas

Zak Ové

Zak Ové

Pauliana Valente Pimentel

MARCO AMBROSI - ITALY LUIS BASTO – PORTUGUAL/MOZAMBIQUE OLOGEH OTUKE CHARLES - NIGERIA MATTEO DANESIN - ITALY DELPHINE DIALLO - SENEGAL SOIBIFAA DOKUBO -NIGERIA ANDREW DOSUNMU - NIGERIA ANIRBAN DUTTAGUPTA -INDIA ANGÈLE ETOUNDI ESSAMBA - CAMEROON INÊS GONÇALVES - PORTUGUAL P. MAÏMOUNA GUERESSI - ITALY HASSAN HAJJAJ - MOROCCO LYLE ASHTON HARRIS - USA KILUANJE KIA HENDA – ANGOLA UCHE OKPA IROHA - NIGERIA MAJIDA KHATTARI - MOROCCO KILUANUJE LIBERDADE – ANGOLA STANLEY LUMAX - USA

MAMADOU M’BAYE - MALI MARIO MACILAU – MOZAMBIQUE SALEM MEKURIA –ETHIOPIA ZANELE MUHOLI - SOUTH AFRICA MALIK NEJMI - ALGERIA CEDRIC NUNN - SOUTH AFRICA NII OBODAI - GHANA J.D. OJEIKERE - NIGERIA ALFREDO MUÑOZ DE OLIVEIRA - PORTUGUAL GEORGE OSODI - NIGERIA ZAK OVÉ - TRINIDAD & TOBAGO PAULIANA VALENTE PIMENTEL - PORTUGUAL MALIK SIDIBE - MALI ALDO SODOMA - ITALY HANK WILLIS THOMAS - USA / CAMEROON MICHAEL TSEGAYE - ETHIOPIA DEB WILLIS – USA

主办：安哥拉—澳门协会 （ＡＡＭ） 承办：北京荔空间 （Ｌｉｓｐａｃｅ） 策展人：亚旺•安柏（Ａｗａｍ Ａｍｋｐａ） 联合策展人：玛达拉•希雷尔（Ｍａｄａｌａ Ｈｉｌａｉｒｅ）、顾振清 出品人：ＡＦＲＩＣＡ ＣＯＮＴ，里斯本 协办：纽约大学非洲研究机构 （ＮＹＵ Ａｆｒｉｃａｎａ ｓｔｕｄｉｅｓ ｄｅｐｔ） 组织及制作管理：Ｍａｎｕｅｌ Ｃ Ｓ （Ｌｉｎｅｓ Ｌａｂ ｌｔｄ） 制作协调：Ｃｌａｒａ Ｂｒｉｔｏ、Ｊｏａｎａ Ｃｏｒｒｅｉａ ｄａ Ｓｉｌｖａ 北京执行团队：Ｌｅｏ ｄｅ Ｂｏｉｓｇｉｓｓｏｎ （８６／３３ ＬＩＮＫ）、Ｍａｒｉｅ Ｔｅｒｒｉｅｕｘ （Ｓｈｕａｎｇ Ｃｕｌｔｕｒｅ ｌｔｄ）

Promoters Macau – Angola Association Exhibition AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME Curator Awam Amkpa Co-Curator Madala Hilaire, Gu Zhenqing Produced by AFRICA CONT (LISBOA) Developed by The Africana Studies Program at New York University Venue in Beijing Li Space Organization and Production Management Manuel C S (Lines Lab ltd) Production Coordination Clara Brito Joana Correia da Sliva Production in Beijing Leo de Boisgisson (86/33 LINK) Marie Terrieux (Shuang Culture ltd) Design Services LINES LAB

Special thanks to: Embassador José Manuel Bernardo Bérénice Angremi Beto Barros Clara Brito Léo de Boisgisson Ana Cardoso Deric Chan Ina Chiu José A. Fernandes Dias Yolanda Garval Madala Hilaire Margarida Jardim Charles Tang Marie Terrieux Frieda Ung Sherley Wang Tina Zhang Gu Zhenqing Hu Zhiliang

BEIJING 2011

MARCO AMBROSI - ITALY | LUIS BASTO – PORTUGUAL / MOZAMBIQUE | OLOGEH OTUKE | CHARLES - NIGERIA | MATTEO DANESIN - ITALY | DELPHINE DIALLO N | INÊS GONÇALVES - PORTUGUAL | P. MAÏMOUNA GUERESSI - ITALY | HASSAN HAJJAJ - MOROCCO | LYLE ASHTON HARRIS - USA | DEB WILLIS – USA | UCHE OKPA IROHA - NIGERIA | MAJIDA KHATTARI - MOROCCO | KILUANUJE LIBERDADE – ANGOLA | STANLEY LUMAX - USA | MAMADOU M’BAYE - MALI | MARIO MACILAU – MOZAMBIQUE | SALEM MEKURIA –ETHIOPIA | ZANELE MUHOLI - SOUTH AFRICA | MALIK NEJMI - ALGERIA | CEDRIC NUNN - SOUTH AFRICA | NII OBODAI - GHANA | J.D. OJEIKERE - NIGERIA | ALFREDO MUÑOZ DE OLIVEIRA - PORTUGUAL | GEORGE OSODI - NIGERIA | ZAK OVÉ - TRINIDAD & TOBAGO | PAULIANA VALENTE PIMENTEL PORTUGUAL | MALIK SIDIBE - MALI | ALDO SODOMA - ITALY | HANK WILLIS THOMAS - USA / CAMEROON | MICHAEL TSEGAYE - ETHIOPIA | KILUANJE KIA HENDA – ANGOLA