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Back to News Visual Griots: Project Summary
| Mali Photography Traditions | Workshop
Structure Visual Griots, a photography workshop for the children of Tominian, Mali, is developed in response to the recent emergence of Bamako as the center for the photographic arts in Africa. This project's unique goal is to support and enrich this nascent artistic community by enabling Malian children, through a two-week workshop:
The Visual Griots project benefits from the expertise of three Washington DC-based photographers: Nestor Hernández, Sora DeVore, and Shawn Davis. Hernández and Devore have led celebrated photography projects for children in Ghana, Cuba, West Virginia and Washington DC. Davis, who has widely published his work on Mali, also brings to the team a wealth of knowledge on Malian language and culture, stemming from his years spent there as a Peace Corps volunteer. Nestor Hernández traveled to Mali in October, 2003, to lay the groundwork for the project (see the Mali section of this Web site for photos). The workshop will be organized in Mali through ASVIGNE (Association Vigne), an NGO run by Malian Jude Théra, a native of Tominian, now based in Bamako. Images resulting from the project will first be shared with the community of Tominian and in the provincial capital San. We plan to connect Visual Griots with the 2005 African Photography Encounters, by displaying the children's work at the festival in November, 2005. Finally, the works will become a part of the permanent collection of the Seydou Keïta Photography House, a new photographic gallery and resource center in Bamako. We also intend for Visual Griots to eventually be shown at the Focus Gallery of the African Voices exhibit, curated by Mary Jo Arnoldi, at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The Visual Griots project is supported through a generous grant from the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and seeks collaboration and support from members of the Smithsonian and Peace Corps communities, Friends of Mali, The U.S. Embassy in Mali, USAID, The U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Lands and Cultures, and the bi-annual African Photography Encounters Festival held in Bamako, Mali. Connecting to Mali's Photographic Traditions Mali is fast becoming the center for the photographic arts in Africa. Several Malian photographers have received international acclaim, most notably Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibe and Alioune Bâ. Every two years, Bamako hosts the African Photography Encounters, a major photography conference and festival that draws image makers from around the world. We are connecting the Visual Griot project with the sixth annual African Photography Encounters in November, 2005, by displaying the children's work at the festival. Their images will also be displayed in Tominian so that the village youth and the greater community will have the opportunity to celebrate the children's work. The works will then become a part of the permanent collection of the Seydou Keïta Photography House, a new photographic gallery and resource center in Bamako named after the eminent photographer Seydou Keïta, considered the father of African studio photographers. Malian photographer Alioune Bâ, director of the Seydou Keïta Photography House, is a part of the workshop team. The workshop will be organized in Mali through ASVIGNE (Association Vigne), a non-governmental organization run by Malian Jude Théra, who was born in Tominian and has strong ties to the region. Students ages 9-12 from the Kuwara and Damy primary schools will be selected for the workshop by ASVIGNE, school, and community officials. The class will take place from for one week at each of the schools with 10 students from each school. Washington, DC photographers Nestor Hernández, Shawn Davis, Sora DeVore, and Malian photographers Alioune Bâ and Amadou Sow will work with the young people, introducing them to photography through assignments designed to increase the children's appreciation and awareness of community and family life. The children, in essence, become contemporary griots, telling their communities' stories through photography. The griot tradition in West Africa is very strong, especially in Mali. Until Muslim traders brought Arabic writing to the area, West Africa had no written language. Instead of writing histories, West Africans memorized and retold them from generation to generation. A griot is a musician and oral historian whose job it is to memorize and recount events and lineages of the past, and preserve those of the current day for the future. Most griots can trace entire family histories back to ancient times, through music and song. Griots constitute a separate caste within Malian society. This important role is passed from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters, who grow up to become their family's next oral historian. Now in the new millennium, we continue to witness the ongoing evolution and transformation of culture. Visual Griots seeks to connect with this artistic tradition of documentation and interpretation of village life, and reinforce, and elaborate upon it by introducing the youth of Mali to the photographic arts. Throughout the workshop, children will use photography and writing to tell their stories. By giving the children these tools, the Visual Griots project will help them put what they see into a form that communicates their world to the community at large. They will use photography as a way of defining their world and affirming their control over important aspects of it. Fieldtrip to Djenne: Mali's UNESCO World Heritage Site The workshop will culminate with a field trip to the ancient island city of Djenne, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, renowned for its monumental Sudanese architecture. The vast majority of students in the Visual Griots workshop will have never visited Djenne, which is located 100 miles from Tominian. After spending the week in Tominian documenting various aspects of their daily lives, the Djenne component of the workshop will provide the students with the opportunity to document a foreign environment and new experience. Through the resulting images we will be able to compare and contrast the images taken in Tominian and Djenne. Inhabited since 250 B.C., Djenné became a market centre and an important link in the trans-Saharan gold trade. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it was one of the centers for the propagation of Islam. Its traditional houses, of which nearly 2,000 have survived, are built on hillocks (toguere) as protection from the seasonal floods. The use of local materials, such as mud and palm wood, the incorporation of conventional styles, and the adaptation to the hot climate of West Africa are expressions of the architecture's elegant connection to the local environment. Such earthen architecture, which is found throughout Mali, will last for centuries as it's commonly maintained. NESTOR HERNÁNDEZ - US Project Director / Instructor Nestor Hernández is a Washington, D.C. based photographer of Afro-Cuban descent. He was introduced to photography in high school through the Urban Journalism Workshop of the D.C. Public Schools, and was on the staff of the Capital Children's Museum as photographer-in-residence for fifteen years. Hernández was also staff photographer for the D.C. Public School system for seven years, and is now a freelance documentary photographer. Hernández has a long history of working with youth in photography. He was director of the PhotoLab program at the Capital Children's Museum where he ran a successful photography workshop with children living in the H Street, NE community of Washington, D.C. He has also directed neighborhood photography workshops with children in D.C.'s Mount Pleasant, and was a program director with "Shooting Back", an internationally recognized photography program for at-risk youth. He directed an extensive three-year collaborative arts project
entitled "Calidoscopio Cubano", taking photography and
art teachers to Cuba to work with Cuban children, and in 1999 taught
photography to African children participating in "Kiddafest",
an international children's arts festival in Accra, Ghana. His other major photo-documentary project "Cuba Reflections: A Photographic Journey," is the result of over 20 trips to the island nation since 1978. In 2001 and 2002, his trips to Cuba concentrated on linking US and Cuban photographers through cultural exchange photography projects and exhibitions. Hernández exhibits his photos regularly. His images have been included in shows throughout Washington, D.C., in Wilmington Delaware, Springfield Massachusetts, Greensboro North Carolina, Memphis, Tennessee, Havana, Cuba and Accra Ghana. His photographs are included in the permanent collections of the Casa de Africa museum and Galería de Arte René Portocarrero in Havana, Cuba, Asafo Gallery in Ghana, the Cuban Art Space in New York, the City Museum of Washington, D.C. and the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum. He is a member and past president of FotoCraft Camera Club, and is the 2001 recipient of the "Photographer of the Year" award, given by the Exposure Group, African American Photographers Association. In 2002 he received the "Outstanding Emerging Artist" award, and in 2003 an Artist Fellowship Grant, both from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. SHAWN DAVIS - Project Manager / Instructor Born in rural Vermont, Shawn Davis first studied photography in his final months as an undergraduate at American University in Washington, DC. A passion for documentary photography then ensued during three years of volunteering with the Peace Corps and the World Food Program in Mali and Guinea, West Africa. Davis is fluent in French and Dogon, and proficient in Bambara. Davis' dedication to Mali-US cultural exchange has only grown since returning to the United States. In 1999 he hosted Mamadou Dougnon, a talented Dogon blacksmith and woodcarver, at his home in Vermont and arranged for Dougnon to participate in the 1999 Vermont Woodcarver's Convention. In 2002 he co-founded the Friends of Mali (FOM), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting understanding of the people and culture of Mali, here in the United States. Davis and FOM joined forces with the Smithsonian Institute, in preparation for the 2003 Folklife Festival on Mali, and helped recruit over 75 festival volunteers, who had previously lived and worked in Mali. Davis' images of Mali played a prominent role in illustrating the festival grounds and appeared in the festival program book. The culmination of FOM's efforts to enhance the experience of the Malian participants during their stay in Washington, D.C. was an unforgettable party, hosted at Davis' home, where 120 Malian artists and musicians came together to celebrate with their American friends. Over the past seven years, Shawn's images and writing have appeared in the Washington Post, World View Magazine, Smithsonian and Peace Corps publications, in a cover story for the Washington City Paper, non-profit web sites and annual reports, calendars and other newspapers. An extensive photo essay of a Malian, Dogon funeral appeared in the summer 2002 issue of African Arts magazine. His work has been exhibited at the Charles Sumner School Museum, International Visions Gallery, The City Museum, Go Momma Go, and BOSSA Bistro in Washington, DC and at the Galeria Rene Portocarrero del Teatro Nacional in Havana, Cuba. In January 2003 he received the Young Emerging Artist Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for "Coming Home"-a documentation of life in a home/hospice for formerly homeless men living with AIDS and cancer in Washington, DC. In January 2004 Davis returned, after five years, to the village in Mali where he had lived as a Peace Corps volunteer. He is currently working to produce an exhibit of images from this trip. Davis also works to promote cultural exchange as a program officer in the Academy for Educational Development's Center on International Exchange. SORA DEVORE - Project Instructor Although she has taught Documentary photography at Glen Echo Photoworks for 6 years she recently became more involved in teaching low socio-economic children in the Washington, DC community. Sponsored by I have a Dream: Project 312, DeVore began teaching a class of 6th graders literacy through photography. Now 8th graders at Hyde Leadership Charter School in Northeast DC they are continuing to view their community through the lens and communicate with photographs and written essays. Sora will remain as a mentor and as a teacher to this same group of students until they graduate high school. Due to her teaching experience and language proficiency Sora was invited to Havana, Cuba to teach children photography in July 2003. In addition to her work with the children, she produced a new black and white portfolio of photographs documenting the Cuban lifestyle. Despite her freelance career in Washington, D.C., Sora maintains
close ties to Oaxaca. In February and March 2002 she returned to
Oaxaca, Mexico, where she assisted Mary Ellen Mark, and Bob Krist
on Maine Photographic Workshops. While in Oaxaca, she continued
working on her personal project, which was exhibited at Rumba Café
upon her return. She travels to Oaxaca annually to continue documenting
the same family from her first trip there in 1997. In addition to teaching and personal project's Sora works as a freelance photographer shooting weddings, events, portraits, and assignments for the Washington Post Magazine, Jewish Day School, McGinn Group, Mc Neil Lehrer Productions, the American Red Cross, Consumer Bankers Association, Washington Performing Arts Society, Montgomery County Fire Department, Fay Foto Agency, Rincones & Company, Meridian House, and Black Issues in Higher Education among others. Her work has been exhibited in a number of solo shows as well as in juried exhibitions. JUDE THÉRA - Mali Project Director Jude Théra is a community development resource specialist in the Tominian region of Mali, where his was born and grew up. With a diverse population of around 165,000, comprised predominantly by the Bobo ethnic minority group, the circle of Tominian, equivalent to a U.S. county, is also peopled by several other ethnic groups, including the Fulani, Dogon, Minianka and Bambara. Agriculture is the major economic activity. After his studies in public administration, he worked for seven years as a public administrator for the Malian government in many areas of the country, including Tombouctou, Goundam and Bamako. In 1993 he began work with the Commission de Secours Chrétien (Christian Relief Commission), a community development organization covering more than 150 villages in Mali. As a leader in this organization, he built partnerships with donor organizations in Europe and North America, including the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee. This work brought him back to his home village of Tominian, where he started projects in literacy, reforestation, health care and micro-finance. In 2002, Jude left the Commission de Secours Chrétien and
founded Association Vigne (ASVIGNE), a local NGO, to develop his
vision of world stewardship. ASVIGNE is involved in education quality
mentoring and provides assistance with school materials in the community
of Yasso, Tominian. ASVIGNE is also partnering with a Japanese NGO
to develop tree planting techniques to assist 8 villages during
the dry season. Alioune Bâ was born in Bamako in 1959. His intellectual father encouraged him to complete both his primary and secondary school education, but when the Malian schools closed in 1979, due to student strikes and riots, Bâ stopped his studies and started work at the recently inaugurated National Museum of Bamako. He first began as a tour guide, but quickly began training in the audiovisual field, which led him to fill a wide variety of roles at the museum. The museum's demand for specialized bodies of knowledge encouraged him to go into the subject area that most attracted him: photography. Bâ was placed in charge of documenting all of the items in the museum's collection for the archive, and subsequently traveled throughout Mali covering numerous subjects through photo-reportage. Combining inventory and identification, the job of museum archive photographer thus led Bâ into the pursuit of details - from the most important to the seemingly insignificant. As the years passed, Bâ established himself as a prodigiously talented photographer. He took charge of the National Museum of Bamako's laboratory, where he oversaw the handling of archive pictures and those included in museum exhibitions. Bâ is currently the director of the Seydou Keïta Association. Bâ's work was first encountered by the West - along with the other leading lights of so-called 'African' photography - during the early Bamako art summits in 1994. Over the last decade or so, Bâ has developed a constant aesthetic pursuit centered on a free relationship with his subjects. This freedom has allowed Bâ to photograph from the most unexpected angles and to capture that which transcends reality. Liberated from the type of photography that portrays the subject as a whole and in its natural state, Bâ searches for the most beautiful pictures hidden in the detail of a hand or a jewel, and in an unforeseen reality. AMADOU SOW - Project Instructor Amadou Sow is a young emerging artist in Mali's photography scene. Sow graduated from high school in Bamako in 1998 and immediately enrolled in the National Institute for the Arts, where he received formal training in the arts and humanities. Sow has completed numerous photography workshops and trainings with institutions including HELVETAS-MALI, the National Institute for the Arts and the National Museum of Mali. He has worked as a photojournalist with the Malian newspaper, "Publie-Info," and completed an internship with the newspaper "24-Heures" in Lausanne, Switzerland. Sow has also worked with the cultural center, active in the Quartier Mali neighborhood of Bamako, which reaches out particularly to street children. Sow's work has been exhibited in a number of domestic and international group exhibits. During the 5th annual African Photography Encounters Festival, held in Bamako, his work was included in the group exhibit presented by "Acte Sept." His work has also been shown in Switzerland at the Mudac Museum in Lausanne, and at the Photography School in Vevey. He is currently employed by the House of African Photography in Bamako which is instrumental in organizing the biennial pan-African photography festival African Photography Encounters. For Further Information, Contact: In the USA: 5514 Blair Road, NE In Mali: B.P. 1063 |
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