Global visual economies: Photography in Senegal, 1840-1960

Guest lecture and reading seminar "Global visual economies"

Based on her book "Portrait and Place", Giulia Paoletti will discuss the histories of photography in Senegal, at the intersection of Black Atlantic, Islamic, and African cultures. In her talk, Paoletti will offer a visual journey from the 1840s, when the oldest-surviving daguerreotype from West Africa was made, to the 1960s, when photography became the most popular medium as Senegal achieved its independence. She will discuss Africa’s most celebrated modernists, such as Mama Casset, and also offer insights into lesser-known photographers like Oumar Ka and once-anonymous figures such as Macky Kane.

In considering a variety of genres and media including glass painting and lithography, this study privileges the close study of photographs as constantly engaged in a dynamic process of circulation, negotiation, and conversion, within, across and beyond the colonial empire. As such, the photograph appears as a moving image that demands we stop looking at it and “instead start watching it,” as it negotiates the visible.

Giulia Paoletti is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on the histories of modern art and photography in Africa. Her book Portrait and Place: Photography in Senegal, 1840-1960 (Princeton University Press, 2024) offers the first extended study of photography in one of Africa’s epicenters of modernity and was awarded the 2024 Photography Network Book Award. Her work has appeared in edited volumes and journals including Art History, Cahiers d›études africaines, the Metropolitan Museum Journal, Troubles dans les collections and African Arts. She is currently working on her second research project, an exhibition co-curated with Dr. Sandrine Colard on the relation between photography and textile.

Registration: via KSL or E-Mail (andrea.birrer2@unibe.ch)