Lecture: March 13, 5:00–6:30 PM, Unitobler, Room: F-105
Reading Seminar: March 14, 10:00 AM–12:00 PM, Mittelstrasse, Room: 220
Based on her book, Portrait and Place, Giulia Paoletti will discuss the histories of photography in Senegal, at the intersection of Black Atlantic, Islamic, and African cultures. In her talk, Paoletti will offer a visual journey from the 1840s, when the oldest-surviving daguerreotype from West Africa was made, to the 1960s, when photography became the most popular medium as Senegal achieved its independence. She will discuss Africa’s most celebrated modernists, such as Mama Casset, and also offer insights into lesser-known photographers like Oumar Ka and once-anonymous figures such as Macky Kane. In considering a variety of genres and media including glass painting and lithography, this study privileges the close study of photographs as constantly engaged in a dynamic process of circulation, negotiation, and conversion, within, across and beyond the colonial empire. As such, the photograph appears as a moving image that demands we stop looking at it and “instead start watching it,” as it negotiates the visible.
