Delio Jasse
Dillon Marsh
Filipe Branquinho
Guy Tillim
Jo Ractliffe
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Mack Magagane
Malala Andrialavidrazana
Mauro Pinto
Paul Samuels
Pieter Hugo
Sabelo Mlangeni
Sammy Baloji
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi
Youssef Nabil
Zineb Sedira
Abbas
Jellel Gastelli
Jananne Al Ani
Shadi Ghadirian
Michket Krifa
Laura Serani
Antonio Pinto Ribeiro
In the exhibition of the 9th edition of the Bamako Photography Encounters the theme proposed was "For a sustainable world", with hundreds of photographs and videos. "Present Tense. Photos from the South of Africa" includes the tension between languages, the choice of colour or black and white and the detail diverging from the panoramic view.
9th Edition of the Bamako Photography Encounters
curators Michket Krifa and Laura Serani
It is the exhibition of the 9th edition of the Bamako Photography Encounters that is presented here. The theme proposed to the photographers was “For a sustainable world”. In a continent where, in many countries, they are still far from reaching the minimum levels set by the Kyoto Agreement, choosing a theme of this nature, with all the implications that it has in terms of environmental policy, economic decisions, environmental protection, and agricultural, fishing and industrial regulations, is, to say the very least, a revolutionary proposal. And this was how the scores of photographers that took part in this exhibition with hundreds of photographs and videos, offered visitors the chance to see the state of the world, where, to quote the curators, “being on Earth and living together” remain obvious notions that immediately call for drastic solutions.
MICHKET KRIFA (Tunisia, 1960)
Artistic co-director of the 8th and 9th Bamako Encounters, lives and works in Paris. An independent visual-arts curator in the Middle East and Africa, her sensitivity led her on several occasions to organize themed exhibitions on Iran, Tunisia and Algeria, including many exhibitions on representation and women issues. Michket Krifa has also been responsible for collective and monographic exhibitions, in particular featuring the works of Youssef Nabil, Zineb Sedira, Abbas, Jellel Gastelli, Jananne Al Ani and Shadi Ghadirian. She is the author of several articles, essays and works on photography and the visual arts; she collaborates with many well-known institutions and events in Europe and around the World. Michket Krifa is the editorial and artistic director of books on photography.
LAURA SERANI (Italy, 1955)
Italian artistic co-director of the 8th and 9th Bamako Encounters, lives in Paris. An international exhibit, audiovisual and editorial-writing projects curator with a career filled with collaborations (Arles Encounters, PhotoEspaña, the Moscow Biennial, Maison Européenne de la Photographie), Laura Serani was the artistic delegate of Photo Month in Paris in 2008, and director of the SiFest in Italy in 2007 and 2008. Between 1985 and 2006, she was Head of the Photography Collection of Fnac and Fnac Photo Galleries in France and internationally. She works with several publishing houses and writes numerous publications along with “La photographie entre histoire et poésie”, “Istanbul”, d’Ara Güler, “La vie en rose”, de Malick Sidibé.
Main building - temporary exhibitions gallery, Floor 00
---------
Present Tense
Photos from the South of Africa
curator António Pinto Ribeiro
An exhibition with photographers from Southern Africa. Looking at the past, the photographs do not derive from a “constellation of ethnic groups or tribes”, to mention the thesis proposed by Elikia M’Bokolo, and this is an essential premise in the curatorship of this exhibition entitled “Present Tense”. We are quite far removed from the photographs taken of black people who “officially […] were frequently depicted in the same visual language as the flora and fauna”, to quote Santu Mofokeng in “The Black Album Photo”. We are interested in showing and comparing the work of photographers who live or travel through a series of cities situated mainly in the Southern Africa region without there being anything to indicate any visual or cultural identity for the region.
Regardless of the genres – portrait, landscape, document, photojournalism – these are photographs about the “Present Tense” that we want to show, and this concept of the “Present Tense” also includes the tension between languages, the choice of colour or black and white and the detail diverging from the panoramic view. With photographs by the photographers Délio Jasse, Dillon Marsh, Filipe Branquinho, Guy Tillim, Jo Ractliffe, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Mack Magagane, Malala Andrialavidrazana, Mauro Pinto, Paul Samuels, Pieter Hugo, Sabelo Mlangeni, Sammy Baloji and Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi.
António Pinto Ribeiro was born in Lisbon in 1956. He graduated in Philosophy at the Lisbon Classic University (1981) and got a Master degree in Communication Sciences at the Lisbon Universidade Nova (1995). He is a lecturer-professor at several universities. In parallel he collaborates regularly with magazines that specialize in Aesthetics, Theories of Arts and Cultures and Cultural programming. He was Culturgest's (Cultural Centre in Lisbon) Artistic Director between 1993 and 2004. He was also the Chief Curator of the “State of the World” cultural forum at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon. He has been Director of the Creativity and Artistic Creation Programme at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and also Coordinator of the Distance and Proximity Gulbenkian Programme. Currently he is Chief curator of the Next Future Gulbenkian Programme, launched in 2009. He is the author of several publications: "Corpo a Corpo" (On the Possibility of Initiating an Analytical Discourse Towards the Arts of the Body); "Por exemplo a cadeira" (For example the chair); "Ser feliz é imoral?" (Is being happy immoral? - On culture, urban spaces and life, and on the distribution of the works of art); “Melancolia” (Melancholy); "Abrigos" (Shelters).
“Present Tense” is a co-production of the Next Future Programme and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Delegation in France.
Next Future is a Gulbenkian Program of Contemporary Culture dedicated in particular, but not exclusively, to research and creation in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Image: Kiluanji Kia Henda, "The Great Italian Nude", 2010.
Press contact:
Sara Pais +351 217823266 spais@gulbenkian.pt
Opening: 21 June, 10 pm
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Av. Berna, 45A 1067-001 Lisbon
Opening Times:
Tuesday to Sunday: 10 a.m. to 5.45 p.m.
Closed on Mondays
Tickets:
Museum (collection + temporary exhibition at the museum gallery): € 4
Temporary exhibitions outside the museum tour: € 3 to € 5 (according to the exhibit)
PASS (access to all exhibition spaces inside the Foundation) € 8.00
2 museums + temporary exhibition gallery € 7