Studio Bamako

The group exhibition »Studio Bamako« refers to the 10th edition of the African Biennale of Photography in Mali, the 2016 Rencontres de Bamako. On show are works by Malala Andrialavidrazana (*1971 in Madagascar), Lebohang Kganye (*1990 in Katlehong, South Africa), and Kitso L. Lelliott (*1984 in Molepolole, Botswana).

Malala Andrialavidrazana’s series »Figures« (2015 – ongoing) questions the significance of signs and their representation in images. Using regional maps e.g. from German colonial times, banknotes, record covers, and other sources that were characteristic for her generation, she creates her personal commentary on globalization. Furthermore works from her series »Echoes« (2011-2012) will be on display.

In the two-part series »Ke Lefa Laka« (2013),« Lebohang Kganye deals with her own family history. In »Her story« she places self-portraits in which she is wearing her mother’s clothes next to historic photographs of her mother with the means of digital photomontage. »Heir-story« the second part of the series, shows self-portraits of the artist in men’s clothes amidst life-sized cardboard collages that are reminiscent of her grandfather’s life during apartheid times.

Kitso L. Lelliott’s video work »By and By Some Trace Remains« (2015) asks questions concerning the colonial past as well. In an unused office on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg a woman works off the layers of the past by cleaning a soiled and abandoned room over and over.

Bisi Silva, artistic director of the 10th Recontres de Bamako: African Biennale of Photography acted as curatorial advisor.

 The exhibition is part of the European Month of Photography 2016.