PhotoCovidZambia - photographic representations of Zambia during a pandemic

COVID19 got in the way of quite our ambitious plan to show the Stories of Kalingalinga exhibition in the three venues in Zambia this year after it had been shown in the UK at the beginning of the year. Public gatherings are banned and travel restrictions will be in place for a long time. We, therefore, postponed the second leg of the exhibition tour until 2021.

But COVID 19 also gave us a unique opportunity to visually investigate photographic representations of Zambia during a pandemic. What are young photographers in Zambia concerned about during a pandemic, what is it like being at home, being worried, being isolated in a Zambian context? What visual material is missing? Will the newly produced images look different from the images we are familiar with African pandemics? Will the images add knowledge and allow us to understand the individual experiences better? Will they allow us to move away from the ‘disaster’ photographs that have so far been prevalent when depicting pandemics on the African continent?

Anglia Ruskin University(ARU) and the Zambian National Visual Arts Council (VAC) are therefore currently hosting an online coronavirus photography response project with eleven photographers from Zambia. The project aims to encourage personal responses of the photographers, who are invited to reflect on the time of social isolation, focus on their personal experiences and realities and respond creatively to the pandemic in a multitude of voices. Zambia and many other  African countries are in the unique position of seeing the pandemic sweeping around the world, waiting if and when the pandemic will reach Zambia and wondering if the country will have prepared enough. The emotional tole of anticipation is part of the visual narrative of the project.

From the Instagram feed

We encourage the photographers to find alternatives to the photographic approaches traditionally employed when commenting on a pandemic on the African continent and ask them to focus on personal and creative responses in a time of lockdown. This is allowing for a wide range of approaches to photography; photographers are using still life, portrait, documentary or fine art genres which interpret their experience. The project aims to emphasize the personal experience with the crises and counteract the ‘African pandemic photographs’, which often dehumanise the photographed.

My role in this project is that of an art animateur. I utilise my experiences in learning and teaching approaches to photography and will foster the participants’ self-learning. The aim is that the photographers find a higher degree of self-realization, self-expression, and awareness of belonging to the photography community during this time of crisis and support each other to become influencers both within Zambia and the wider world. The emphasis of the project is to develop local imagery that will change public perception and understanding of how this crisis is affecting Zambia. The aim of the project is to develop a local visual response and counteract the lack of local voices in the representation of everyday life in Africa.

Geoffrey Phiri, painter and former Chair of VAC is the local coordinator of the project. Geoffrey uses his extensive video training in this project. His acute observations and reflections on the constant change of urban life underpin the contextual framework of the programme.

We are making these locally produced images available on an Instagram account throughout the project.  A weekly zoom meeting and a WhatsApp group are used as communication tools amongst the UK and Zambian photographers. The overall aim is to further strengthen the photography community in Zambia and promote the emerging visual voices from Zambia.

Stories of Kalingalinga opens at Cambridge University

The Private View will take place on Thursday 27th February, 16:30-19:00, in the Centre of African Studies and the Africa Studies Library (third floor, Alison Richard Building, Sidgwick Site) at Cambridge University. Please join for an evening of photography, discussion, and refreshments.

The exhibition is open to all, 09:30-17:00, Monday – Friday, from 24th February.

More info here: https://asclibraryblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/20/stories-of-kalingalinga-private-view-27th-february/

Stories of Kalingalinga - The Catalogue

Andrea Stultiens - Symposium Discussion Remarks

Telling our tales through ambiguous photography: decolonizing the visual library of the African continent. 

Photo: Kayleigh Ward

A few remarks initially formulated to aid the general discussion at the end of a productive and interesting day, and reformulated once informed by it. 

The title of this symposium both poses a challenge and offers a solution. We need to decolonize ‘the visual library’ (which is a metaphorical rather than an actual collection) of the African continent. This can be done by embracing the ambiguous nature of photographs in telling tales in an inclusive manner. They are ours, these tales.

This premise led to presentations about, with and through photographs, each addressing and questioning aspects of ‘ambiguous photography’ as well as the gestures that could contribute to the needed decolonization.

Decolonisation was, on Errol Francis’ initiative, questioned throughout the day. What do we actually mean when we use this buzzword? What are the consequences of bringing it up? The most widely supported reading of it was ‘a redistribution of power’, which was further translated into the slightly more tangible gestures of re-interpreting, deconstructing, reconstructing gazes, voices, traditions and conventions through scholarship and (artistic) intervention. To make these gestures ‘true’ they have to include relinquishing the outcomes of the powers enforced through colonization. In addition, we need to acknowledge that power has to be exacted and claimed, it cannot be handed over.

This should lead to the development of a variety of forms in which these gazes and voices manifest. When are these forms confirming or even reinforcing problematic conventions and traditions while trying to bring them to the discourse, and when are they indeed productive as ‘decolonial gestures.’

Msingi Sasis brought in the notion of censorship in its various manifestations -e.g. state censorship, social censorship, self-censorship. It is important to consider the mechanisms leading to and resulting from censorship in several ways. Firstly, in relation to certain traditions and conventions that inform particular and situated production and uses of photographs. Secondly in terms of factors which frustrate the ability to produce photographs, as argued by Danny Chiyesu when speaking about the historic restriction of camera ownership in Zambia.

When we claim certain knowledge, and understanding, who is this ‘we’? Are there understandings of photographs that do not aid the diversifying of a visual library? Which gazes are appreciated or ignored or negated in contemporary discourses concerning photography, art, journalism etc.? In other words, and in relation to the examples presented by Louise Fedotov-Clements, how do the qualities of subjective renderings relate to the limitations of universal languages? What do we need to know about colonial power structures to be able to shift them? When and how do photographs allow us to see beyond what the human eye can see and what the brain, connected to the eye thinks it knows?

A paradox of photography that is relevant in this respect is found in the generation of visibility that can also be a factor in limiting rather than expanding imaginations. Today’s symposium led to new connections. It offers the possibility to expand imaginations within and beyond the discourses the people present are part of.

Andrea Stultiens

SYMPOSIUM - Telling our tales through ambiguous photography: Decolonizing the visual library of the African continent

The symposium Telling our tales through ambiguous photography: Decolonizing the visual library of the African continent is part of the Stories of Kalingalinga exhibition programme. Please join us on the 31st January for this whole day event. Here the eventbrite link.

Symposium Theme: Decolonizing institutions like libraries is often discussed in the context of the written word while visual materials, just as much produced from a particular perspective as texts, also contribute to an expansion of our understanding of the African continent when reframed or re-entangled. The symposium aims to showcase practitioners, practice researchers and theorists who are working towards renewed and diverse visual understandings of the continent. The speakers will highlight the importance of collective making and collaboration with partners from the north and south. Contributions from a wide range of approaches aim to facilitate discussion and innovation throughout the day.

Speakers:

Andrea Stultiens (NL)

Msingi Sasis (Kenya)

Larry Amponsah (Ghana/UK)

Natalia Gonzalez Acosta (Mexico)

Kerstin Hacker (Germany/UK)

Michelle Bogre (USA)

Danny Chiyesu (Zambia)

Louise Fedotov-Clements (UK)

Stories of Kalingalinga exhibition at ARU in Cambridge until the 13th of February