Tipo Passe series, 2014, printed 2023
Edson Chagas
Cheick F. Ouattara
Fernando L. Makélélé
Diogo K. Puenha
Emmanuel C. Bofala
Patrice J. Ndong
Thierry D. Bomboko
Marcel D. Traoré
Leroy M. Futa
Salvador D. Kimbangu
Pablo P. Mbela
Diana S. Sakulombo
Jean P. Mbayo
In this series, Chagas photographs sitters wearing masks and contemporary clothing against a stark white background. The title, Tipo Passe, is Portuguese for passport and the artist’s frontal composition references passport photography. Chagas photographs a variety of traditional Bantu masks used to represent the spirits of ancestors. Questioning the collection and display of these masks as cultural artefacts divorced from their intention, Chagas explores the connection between their intended use as performative objects and the global circulation of traditional African art. The artist gives each of his subjects invented European-African names, highlighting the role of migration and colonialism in the development of identity. He explains that, ‘the real or assumed identities of the people hidden beneath the masks are given, whose European-derived names associated with local surnames, recall Angola’s long past as a colony.’*
Masks are a significant part of African cultural heritage,
playing an important role in ritual and ceremonial performances across many regions. For centuries, they have been used to form relationships between individuals, communities, the environment and the cosmos. By putting on a mask, performers enter a sacred realm between the living and ancestral worlds.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, masks were removed from these spaces of ritual and taken to Europe where they became museum objects. European artists also collected and appropriated these masks, further divorcing them from their history. Here, contemporary artists engage with their heritage while challenging these histories of dispossession. They explore the enduring power of the mask and the moral and philosophical challenges that arise from their multiple meanings. Their work speaks to the writings of Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne (born 1955) and his question, ‘What do African masks mean? What do these objects, labelled fetishes, say once the gods have departed?’
In Worrying the Mask (2020) Zina Saro-Wiwa (born 1976) interrogates the use of masks to represent communities and cultures. Her performance-lecture demands we think differently about these objects, questioning how they are displayed and contextualised. Combining photography with performance, the artists in this room use masks to explore the politics of identity, gender and power. Through play and provocation, they ask us to consider their meaning as living objects.*
From the exhibition
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography
(July 2023 – January 2024)
A celebration of the varied landscape of contemporary African photography today
Bringing together a group of artists from different generations, this exhibition will address how photography, film, audio, and more have been used to reimagine Africa’s diverse cultures and historical narratives.
Moving beyond a traditional photography exhibition, the show seeks to explore the many ways images travel across histories and geographies. Using themes of spirituality, identity, urbanism and climate emergency, the exhibition will guide the viewer through dream-like utopias and bustling cityscapes viewed from the artists’ perspectives.
The exhibition follows artists across the many landscapes, borders and time zones of Africa to reveal how photography allows the past and the future to co-exist in powerful and transformative ways.
...A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography brings together 36 artists who use photography to reimagine Africa’s place in the world. It is inspired by the continent’s rich cultural traditions, as well as present-day social and political realities. Drawing on the theories of Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe (born 1957), the exhibition invites us to imagine ‘a world in common’. To do this, Mbembe claims, we must ‘think the world from Africa’. A World in Common explores Africa’s past, present and future to create a more expansive and inclusive narrative of humanity. It suggests that to conceive ‘a world in common’ is to imagine a future of possibility.
There is no single, definitive history of Africa. It is a continent of multiple, interconnected realities. Pushing the boundaries of photography and film, the artists in A World in Common confront reductive representations of African peoples and cultures. They address photography’s past and embrace its potential to reframe the present and shape tomorrow.
The exhibition is divided into three chapters: Identity and Tradition, Counter Histories and Imagined Futures. The first chapter is rooted in ancient African cultures and traditions which have survived periods of struggle and resistance. Inspired by Pan-African liberation movements, the second chapter looks at photography’s ability to produce counter histories - archival practices and the agency of photographer and subject are brought into focus. The third chapter explores the impact of globalisation and the climate emergency. Here, artists imagine a shared future informed by common realities. A World in Common creates space for exchange and discovery, inviting us to imagine new ways of inhabiting the earth.
[*Tate Modern]
Taken in Tate Modern
