The African Gaze: Photography, Cinema, and Power

Archivist Sall debuts with a mesmerizing ode to African “image-makers” who have “affirm[ed] the... humanity colonialism was determined to extinguish.” Among the photographers and filmmakers spotlighted are Joseph Moïse Agbodjelou, who documented the cultural traditions of his native Benin in up-close shots of individuals and families (one striking image features a man in traditional patterned clothes gazing at the camera with extraordinary intensity); Congolese photographer Ambroise Ngaimoko, who gave his subjects makeup, clothes, and accessories to shape their own images; and filmmaker Souleymane Cissé, who captured in such films as 1987’s Yeelen the “fantasy, spirituality, and folklore” of a bygone Mali culture (frames from the film showcase “visually sophisticated effects against the stunning Malian landscape,” as in one image of a woman in front of a waterfall). Covering a dizzying stylistic and geographic range, the entries reveal how these photographers and filmmakers transformed visual mediums that had a history of framing African people as “primitive subjects for ethnographic study” into modes of expression that assert autonomy, honor tradition, and remake identity by reimagining links between past and present. It’s a game changer. (Sept.)