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Up until relatively recently – when mass intercontinental travel became more commonplace – Africa was only ever seen through the lens of a camera. And those capturing the images were not the indigenous population.
For this issue’s Picture Power, Bill Kouwenhoven looks at a group of young African
photographers who are helping to change all that.
The “Digital Divide” between North and South is slowly breaking down but images of the South, and especially Africa, are still usually the work of photographers from America and Western Europe.
They tend to concentrate on the latest coup, episode of cholera or AIDS, starvation or natural disaster. What is missing from the whole picture, of course, are images by Africans themselves about what interests them, be it art or politics.
In recent years the internationally-known Africans, Simon Njami and Okwui Enwezor,
have curated eye-opening art and photography shows that have received much attention
in Paris, Kassel, London, and, most recently, at New York’s International Center
of Photography. This is long overdue.
One of the highlights of these shows has been the work of the photography collective, Depth of Field, based in Lagos, Nigeria.
DOF, as the collective is known, are a group of six young Nigerians, most of whom are under 30.
Kelechi Amadi Obi, Ty Bello, Uchechukwu James-Iroha, and Amaize Ojeikere make up the original four members while Zaynab Toyosi Odunsi and Emeka Okereke joined several years later.
The six come from different ethnic, religious and geographical backgrounds but have found strength working together. They owe their inspiration to participation in the African Photography Biennale in Bamako, Mali, in October 2001.
As Ty Bello put it, they noticed that although there were many images of Africa and African cities, all were by Western photographers.
So, they formed a collective to express their ideas and views of what it is like to be African and live in the community where they work.
One of the newer members, Emeke Okereke, notes “DOF is all about using the advantages of friendship to bring about positive values. …We realize that we are at a point where things are changing so rapidly in Lagos.”
According to their mission statement “Photographing the city has brought the group enormous challenges”. Insecurity and apprehension amongst people about photography, as a result of past military indoctrination, has meant the collective has had to find a way to demystify the process.
“Our (role) is to document this change,” Okereke adds, “The best shots are always when you take pictures of people you know, who you are very close to.”
Members meet every Friday to brainstorm ideas, discuss challenges and propose
projects. They also inspire each other to find the time to do personal work after
tackling the commercial commissions which make ends meet. This drives the collective.
“Hopefully, it will reflect better in our images as a group as we go along,” argues Zaynab Toyosi Odunsi, adding that working as a team does not diminish their individual visions but enhances their position as photographers in their community.
Amaize Ojeirkere, the son of one of Nigeria’s most famous photographers, explains:
“It allows you to have a feel for the work. You just experience it, and leave
with that experience.”
Essentially, though, he says: “We are talking about the lives of the people in
these images taken around the city in markets, at bus stops, at the beaches, in
the towers and shanty towns and on the street.”
By presenting their work in unconventional spaces and returning the pictures to those they photograph, DOF remains part of the vibrancy that is Lagos.
As part of the recent exhibition in New York’s International Center of Photography entitled Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography (curated by Okwui Enwezor), they presented a stream of unsigned images as slide shows on four flat panel screens.
These streams of pictures seemed to sum up the energy of Lagos, a city of explosive growth and change, and their collective response to it. For Ojeikere, DOF represents the “situation of life in which we find ourselves and the work, in a way, explains it.”
DOF artists’ quotations with the kind permission of Molara Wood of The Guardian (Lagos), and DOF artists’ website (see below).
Bill Kouwenhoven
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