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Beyond the “African” Archive Paradigm

Recently there has been an unprecedented surge of interest among scholars, curators and collectors in early photographic material from West Africa, galvanizing new multidisciplinary networks of scholarly research and exhibition practices. The transfer of photographs and even whole archives from the African continent to Europe and the United States has continued to increase as a consequence of the research and market demand, posing new questions about rights to access, preservation, public awareness and scholarship of these photo collections. The photographic, film and related archival material that remains in West Africa is found in profoundly fragile conditions: rarely centralized, often in private hands, and often totally inaccessible to communities. The conditions of disintegration and other threats compound these circumstances, and can only partially be met by digitization technologies and improved capacity for circulation online. It is within this contextual framework that our authors frame the creative histories of photography in West Africa, their social and aesthetic dimensions and their political subjectivities.