YaPhoto, in partnership with OTHNI, is pleased to announce YaPhoto 2017 a series of events taking place in Yaounde (Cameroon) from 27 November to 2 December 2017. The programme will include a photography exhibition, video art screenings, a panel discussion, a research seminar and portfolio reviews. Conceived as an ‘expo-lab’ and creative hub installed at OTHNI – a Yaounde-based multidisciplinary art space – this edition concludes the pilot phase of the Cameroonian photography platform before the project moves on to its next stage.
Entitled Picturing the Present, the proposed theme seeks to examine the local photographic gaze, question image-making processes and address the gaps between society and visual representation through the work of Cameroonian photographers Romuald Dikoumé, Blaise Djilo, Wilfried Nakeu, Yvon Ngassam and Sarah Tchouatcha (France/Cameroon). Collectively, their practices range from performative photography to a documentation of Cameroonian contemporary cultures and society.
This year will also mark a focus on arts from the Indian Ocean facilitated by the Frac Réunion (Regional Fund for Contemporary Art, Reunion Island) with Émeutes by Anne Fontaine from Reunion Island, an installation of kaleidoscopic images printed on fabric exploring the aesthetics of social unrest while conjuring wax motifs, their colonial history and trajectories across Indonesia, Europe and Africa. The programme will also include a special screening of British-based Mauritian artist Shiraz Bayjoo’s film Île de France, an immersive non-narrative piece, focusing on objects, architecture and environments that act as historical images or documents revealing encounters between Mauritius and its colonial past. Another highlight will be Mounir Allaoui’s short videos in part exploring his Comorian heritage.
OTHNI and Musée la Blackitude will be the venues of two evenings of video art with selections from the Digital Africa screenings previously hosted in London in collaboration with Open Source, and Tokyo with OGU MAG as part of the Arakawa Africa 8 pre-events. YaPhoto’s video art component aims to create a dialogue between local practitioners and audiences, and African and Diaspora video artists whose works explore personal or collective narratives in an aesthetic, experimental, or documentary manner.
The selected artists are: Ruy Cézar Campos (Brazil), Rehema Chachage (Tanzania), Tamara Dawit (Canada), Edem Dotse (Ghana) & SUTRA (UK), Cecilia Ferreira (South Africa), Megan-Leigh Heilig (South Africa), Onyeka Igwe (UK), Mouna Jemal Siala (Tunisia), Emo de Medeiros (Benin-France), Tiécoura N’daou (Mali), Danielle WaKyengo O’Neill (South Africa), Yvon Ngassam (Cameroon), Jean-Baptiste Nyabyenda (Rwanda), Saïd Raïs (Morocco) and Breeze Yoko (South Africa).
The videos include short documentaries dealing with cultural heritage, gender, identity, history, activism as well as aesthetics, visual narratives, sound and music.
In addition to this, is planned a panel discussion on the state of Cameroonian photography locally, on the continent, and in relation to the global scene. Scheduled speakers include Madeleine Mbida (co-founder of Nkongsamba Photography Festival), Rodrig Mbock (photographer, graphic designer and co-founder of Kamera collective and 4×4 project), Yvon Ngassam (photographer), Parfait Tabapsi (founding editor of Mosaïques magazine) who will be joining Christine Eyene (co-founder of YaPhoto). Furthermore, a call for local photographers will be made to attend programmed portfolio reviews, followed by a research seminar on Cameroonian photography history and contemporary practices aimed at photographers, research students and art writers.
For the first time, YaPhoto will also include an associate programme with a workshop and exhibition of images by high school pupils entitled Grand Angle sur le Quotidien au Lycée (Wide Angle on everyday life in high school) at Lycée Fustel de Coulanges (18 Nov – 1st Dec), a programme proposed by Sarah Tchouatcha.
Tchouatcha will also present Invariables a solo exhibition curated by Yves Chatap at Institut Français du Cameroun, Yaounde (4 – 22 Dec).
YaPhoto 2017: Picturing the Present
Monday 27 Nov – Saturday 2 Dec 2017
OTHNI and Musée la Blackitude, Yaounde
Associate Programme
Grand Angle sur le Quotidien au Lycée
Lycée Fustel de Coulanges, Yaounde, 18 Nov – 1 Dec 2017
Invariables exhibition by Sarah Tchouatcha
Institut Français du Cameroun, Yaounde, 4 – 22 Dec 2017
YaPhoto 2017 programme of events is curated by Christine Eyene, Research Fellow of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan, Preston). Eyene is also curator of the Summer of Photography 2018 at Bozar, Brussels, and Artistic Director of the 4th International Biennial of Casablanca 2018.
This edition is made possible with support from the Making Histories Visible project (UCLan), OTHNI – Laboratoire de Théâtre de Yaoundé, Frac – Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain, Réunion; and partnerships with Open Source, OGU MAG, Musée la Blackitude, Al Krist and eye.on.art.
