Streams of consciousness at Bamako Encounters

The Bamako Encounters Biennial of African Photography opened in late November with song and dance at the National museum of Mali. Boitumelo Tlhoaele explores the exciting stories brought to the surface by the exhibition.

The artistic director of the Bamako Encounters Biennial of African Photography, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, and his curatorial team have appreciated the ways we “think about photography beyond the photographic”, through their exhibition titled Streams of Consciousness: A Concatenation of Dividuals.

The twelfth edition of the photography and video exhibition opened with song and dance at the National Museum of Mali in November.

After what seemed like an eternity of official proceedings came captivating and evocative images and videos displayed in unconventional ways. Some photographs were displayed on large pyramid-like panels while others were displayed flat on plinths, making the viewer consume the photos from a bird’s eye view-like fashion, which was a useful addition to the exhibition.

This biennale includes works by renowned South African photographers Andrew Tshabangu, and Abrie Fourie. Other local artists who are part of the exhibition are Fanyana Hlabangane, Renée Holleman, Kitso Lynn Lelliott, Jodi Bieber and Buhlebezwe Siwani, among others.

Siwani’s video work, AmaHubo 2018, is shown at the Modibo Keita Memorial and it won the Bisi Silva Prize. The video tackles the overlapping issues of African religion and spiritualities within the framework of colonialism and the extended conversations of gender, race, politics and economic inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa, and explores how these intersect. Siwani won an opportunity to attend a residency programme at the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) in Lagos, Nigeria, as part of the prize.

Silva was the director of the Lagos CCA and she is celebrated for encouraging research, education and the excellence of artists in Africa.

At the museum, Fototala King Massassy’s photographs were a unifying thread among the images and videos. His work, which is on the cover of the exhibition’s elaborate catalogue, reflects portraits of clenched fists adorned with rings and other charms described in the catalogue as “symbolism of the strength, unity and defiance … that have accompanied so many struggles even beyond the US”.

The clenched fists are a relatable and powerful symbol often gestured in conjunction with the phrase “Amandla!”, often used by politicians and activists alike. The gesture is an act often preserved for moments of speaking in unison against different types of oppression at rallies and other political meetings.

Celebrating 25 years this year, the Bamako Encounters Biennial of African Photography has extended celebrations to the Palace of Culture in Mali and the French Institute of Mali, among other venues. Extending the festivities was a way of opening up the exhibition to broader audiences.

Streams of consciousness

                                                                                        Amahubo video by Buhlebezwe Siwani

The exhibitions’ title is inspired by jazz musicians Abdullah Ibrahim and Max Roach’s 1977 album titled Streams of Consciousness. In explaining this theme, the curatorial statement explains that streams of consciousness is a metaphor for “the flux of ideas, peoples and cultures that flow across and with rivers such as the Niger, Congo, Nile and Mississippi”.

It explains further that “it listens carefully to remoteness and invisible matters, hitherto erased voices and images, and celebrates politics and poetics of (in)animate ecosystems”.

More interestingly, the exhibition’s curators have called for a consideration of the sonicity of photography, the idea that photography can extend beyond sight to other senses.

Ndikung expands on this concept in his essay titled Of A Photographic State of Being: Delivering the Photographic From Photography, and explains that his interest is to see where this sonic and the photographic world connect.

He writes that “thinking of photography as a sonic experience led to the development of the theme of this edition of the biennale. Suffice to say that I am interested in that point where the photography and phonography meet, where they enable each other.”

Exclamating, Still! Savvy Contemporary Invocations

                                                                 Fanyana Hlabangane, Graceful Chaos (from the series Silent Conversations) 2017-19.

In a move to challenge these ideas robustly, a programme designed by the Savvy Contemporary, of which Ndikung is director, had a forum hosted at the museum. At the forum, the sonicity of photography and metaphors relating to streams of consciousness were discussed.

The programme featured music performances, as well as lectures from invited artists and academics, namely Teju Cole, Fatoumata Diabaté and Harandane Dicko, among others.

US-based academic Tina Campt gave her lecture through a recorded video, emphasising idea of “the quiet within photographs”. Her address formed a strong base on which the rest of the responses were shared and performed. Campt is known for her book Listening To Images, which meditates on the concept that photographs can be listened to and that in the act of listening they can be quiet. She, however, cautions that quiet doesn’t mean silent, nor does it mean without sound.

After this thought-provoking lecture, we were treated to Madina N’Diaye’s music performance on the kora. N’Diaye performed traditional Malian music with much enthusiasm, and Siwani closed off the forum with a cleansing ritual that brought the audience back to a sense of quietness, a stream of consciousness of sorts.

One doesn’t get enough time to be fully be immersed in the entire exhibition and its different venues. However, credit must be given to the curatorial team for an intellectually stimulating curatorial framework, and for their choice of artists, whose photographs and videos were engaging, aesthetically pleasing and brought forward exciting stories and histories.

. The Bamako Encounters Biennial runs until January 31 2020.

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