
Zeitgenössische und Historische Fotografie im Dialog
Edition POPCAP – APhI Archives
Sihlquai 125, Zurich, Switzerland
1 December 2016 – 22 January 2017

The exhibition at the Photobastei in Zurich featuring works from 13 works from winners of the CAP Prize for Contemporary African Photography. The photographic series be counteracted by historical photographic works from the archives of African Photography Initiatives, provoking exciting dialogues between images and groups of work, and enabling the dismantling of the standard image of Africa. The exhibition present approximately 150 works from Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Kenya, Cameroon, Italy, Tunisia, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Egypt and Burundi.
The selection of photographs accompanying the CAP Prizewinners’ works can be seen as a translation system within a visual tradition that is neither linear, mandatory nor directly consistent. The historical photographs engage in a dialogue with the images, reflect them, refer to particular elements within them, react to an atmosphere that characterises an entire photographic series, and are united with them in terms of meaning and purpose. Several of these dialogues resulted from an intuitive process, others from theoretical, intellectual reflection.
All historical photographs were taken by African photographers and come from the African Photography Initiatives (APhI) collections and the website africaphotography.org, which is run by APhI. They cover a time period of more than a hundred years; the oldest photographs were taken in the 1880s, the most recent in the 1990s. Thus these historical photographs not only reflect cultural and political changes, but also those profound technical and cultural developments that shaped photography and its practice during this time period.
The exhibited works
The exhibited photographs are from: Thom Pierce, Great Britain | Julia Runge, Germany | FilipeBranquinho, Mozambique | Tahir Carl Karmali, Kenya | Zied Ben Romdhane, Tunisia | Romaric Tisserand, France | Ilan Godfrey, South Africa | Léonard Pongo, Belgium | Dillon Marsh, South Africa | Graeme Williams, South Africa | Guillaume Bonn, France | Nabil Boutros, France | Paolo Patrizi, Italy | Jean Depara, Democratic Republic of the Congo | Zagabe Mugema, Democratic Republic of the Congo | Thaddeus Nokuba, Cameroon | Emmanuel Mbwaye, Cameroon.
Vernissage
Thursday, 1 December 2016 | 6 – 8 pm
Panel Discussion. African Photography und Archives.
Friday, 16 December 2016 | 7 – 9 pm
Gesine Krüger (University of Zürich)
Nora Mathys (historian, former project manager of the Ringier Press Photo Archive at the state archive of Aargau, Switzerland)
René Egloff (historian, independent scholar)
Chaired by Jürg Schneider.
Guided tour. Views from Historical Perspectives. Jürg Schneider.
Friday, 13 Januar 2017 | 7 – 8 pm
Presse