Rester et Partir/ Bleiben und Gehen/Staying and Leaving/Toso any ka taka - Photography and the Representation of African Migration

Symposion & Exhibition: Point Sud & Musée de Bamako, 8.2.-10.3.2011

 
Why Bamako?
Bamako, the capital of Mali, is an international city. Here live would-be migrants, returnees, and individuals in transit from throughout West and Central Africa. Bamako is a hub for many organizations concerned with migration: national, international, and NGO measures to assist returnees, programs for emigrants, reintegration programs with the aid of micro-credits, academic research projects on migration routes, an art college that has incorporated the issue into its course offerings.
The “Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie,” the most important photography biennale on the African continent has taken place in Bamako since 1993. Bamako has a world famous studio photography scene of many years, an exhibition infrastructure, and a public interested in photography.
 
Symposion

The shift from Frankfurt am Main to Bamako is based on the lively migration and photography scene in Bamako. But not solely. The shift is also of eminent academic significance. Western scholarship continues to influence the perceptions formed about a non-European reality. The shift to Bamako is meant to address the Eurocentric practice of looking outwards. As a positional shift, — in the opposite direction to the migration vectors addressed during the symposium — the shift highlights the conscious questioning and exploration of the guest and host status and its self-conception in scholarship and art. Point Sud is, therefore, the ideal meeting place for a productive discussion not only of being a foreigner, being a guest, and mobility, but also of the limits of mobility, scholarship, media diffusion, and public profile. The symposium will take place at the Point Sud conference venue and the exhibition in the Musée de Bamako.
 
Exhibition

The exhibition in the Musée de Bamako was developed in cooperation with Amadou Sow, co-curator and member of the staff of the Maison Africaine de la Photographie and six additional photographers from Mali as well as four artists from Germany, Austria, and England.

 

 

 

 

Emanuel Bakary Daou, Bamako (photography)
 

 

 

 

Halima Diop, Bamako (photography)
 

 

 

 

Sokona Diabaté, Bamako (photography)
 

 

 

 

Fatoumata Diabaté, Bamako (photography)
 

 

 

Roshini Kempadoo, London (video installation, Point Sud)
 

 

 

Brigitta Kuster & Moise Merlin Mabouna, Berlin (video installation)
 

 

 

 

Boumana Magassa, Bamako (photography)
 

 

 

 

Mamadi Koité, Kayes (photography)
 

 

 

 

Lisl Ponger, Wien (photography)
 

 

 

 

Amadou Sow, Bamako (photography)
   
 
Film Screenings
 
Wednesday, 9. Feb., 20.30
Point Sud, Bamako
HEREMAKONO / EN ATTENDANT LE BONEUR / WAITING FOR HAPPINESS
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mauritanie/Mauritania 2002, 95'
OV Hassaniaya, Bamana, French subtitles

Friday, 11. Feb., 15.00
Conservatoire Balla Fasséké Kouyaté, Bamako
Short Films Programme
Films by Toussaint Dembélé, Mamari Diallo, Mohamed Konaté,
Brigitta Kuster & Moise Merlin Mabouna, Tiécoura N'Daou, Lisl Ponger

Friday, 11. Feb., 20.30
Point Sud
ABSENT PRESENT
Angelika Levi, D 2009, 85'
OV, Span. Wolof, German, English subtitles

T uesday, 15. Feb., 20.30
Point Sud
ARLIT, DEUXIÈME PARIS
Idrissou Mora-Kpai, F/Benin 2005, 78'
OV Bariba, Haussa, Tamasheq, French, English, French or English subtitles

Thanks to the filmmakers/their distributors for the DVDs and the admission to show their films.

Raul Gschrey: "Oskar/Mali", performance (web edit), Bamako, 2011.
The marine signal flag "Oskar" signifiing "man overboard" is hoisted in a ceremonial manner. The performance was staged as part of the symposium in Bamako, Mali in cooperation with students of the academy for arts and music "Balla Fasseké Kozuyaté".

Review:
Christian Karavanga: "'Bleiben und Gehen', eine Ausstellung und ein Symposium zu Migration und Fotografie in Bamako", Mali, in: Springerin, XVII, Heft 2 Frühjahr 2011, S. 56-57. (german only)