Ange-Frédéric Koffi, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

To introduce you to our audience, could you share a bit about your background—how your early life and education shaped your artistic journey, and what key themes or interests you explore in your work?

Ange-Frédéric Koffi (AFK) I grew up in a family where ‘the land’ was very important. By that I mean land-use planning, environmental issues, linked, offending, economic policies... Both my parents work in sustainable development and have devoted their lives to carrying out land-use planning projects and drafting laws to protect the land. From country to country, I've travelled and encountered different notions, values and ways in which people relate to the land. Growing up in this very specific environment has contributed tremendously to shaping both a global and a local understanding of the concept of land.

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel 

Tell us a bit more about your general approach to photography/visual medium and how you envision your projects?

AFK: My use of photography is part of a wider practice as a visual artist. Always on the lookout for the right medium, I force myself to question the materiality of the pieces I make, depending on the projects or ideas I want to share. Photography therefore appears to be a tool that allows me to develop a certain linguistic quality within my practice. I started by practising photography argentique from my beginnings. Although I later had a digital camera to accompany me - for a back-up - my use of film is constant. 

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, First proposition - word, image & myth i, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, First proposition - word, image & myth i, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

Your work explores the intersections of movement, travel, and wandering. How do these themes connect to your personal history and the broader historical context of postcolonial Africa?

AFK: My personal history, mentioned above, has obviously shaped my understanding of the world and structured my relationship to it. When I started my photography project in 2015, entitled Le Grand Voyage - Version Courte, I wasn't really aware of the impact of my upbringing on this project. It's something that just came about completely naturally and seems obvious to me. However, from the outset, I was keen to look at and understand the specific and historical contexts linked to the road and travel in West Africa. I then discovered a certain amount of reading, a certain amount of scientific research, but also a certain number of engineering projects that immediately fascinated my approach to the territory.
Then, as my education progressed, I was led to study history and philosophy alongside my art studies. The tension between these three fields - art, history and philosophy - forms the basis of my practice today.

In your current exhibition, First Proposition - Word, Image & Myth, you present a speculative installation that challenges traditional visual codes. How do you see photography as a “meta-process” that disrupts established ways of representing reality? What is the role of the viewer in this process?

AFK: The meta-process present in the works puts the viewer back at the heart of the practice, but the aim here is above all to question the production of images, and by extension of history. In the body of work presented First Proposition - Word, Image & Myth, the images, although cut off from the world by their materiality (black borders, frame), are totally dependent on it. Through this process of abstraction and superimposition, which I borrow from Flusser, I try to highlight the process of silence and invisibility that exists in an image, and by extension in history. There are grey areas in our production of images. The exhibition The Supermarket of Images in 2020 curated by Peter Szendyf for Le jeu de Paume (Paris) highlighted this very well. Michel-Rolph Trouillot's book Silencing in the Past published by Beacon Press in 1995, shows us very well how history is constructed through abstraction.

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, First proposition - word, image & myth i, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

Exposition BPM - LUX - Paris, 2024

Exposition BPM - LUX - Paris, 2024

Memory and representation are central to your work. How do you reconfigure these elements in your practice, especially in relation to colonial history and its impact on the present? What role does myth play in your process of reinterpreting historical narratives?

AFK: When we look at memory, there is a notion that emerges unexpectedly, and that is desire. A singular movement emerges between the desire to think about memory and the desire to heal it. In French, Penser (think) and Panser (to treat).
The myth can then be used to generate new imagery and propose new representations. Through myth, we can look again at the past, understand the present differently and anticipate a new future. The title of this series, First Proposition - Word, Image & Myth, comes to me from an essay by Césaire published in 1944 in the cultural magazine Tropiques, that he had founded with his wife Suzanne Césaire in 1941. In this essay, entitled Poésie et Connaisance, Césaire attempts to define the role of the poet in society. His conclusion is a (slightly dense) statement of these seven propositions. The first, which I invite you to go and look for yourself, inspired me to create these images; the construction and abstraction of time, images, history and materials...

Your work draws on a broad range of disciplines. How do these different fields shape your creative process? Are there particular artists or thinkers who have influenced your approach? How do you involve or relate to field experts and research in general?

AFK: I could mention Henrietta Lidchi, Erving Goffman, Zoe Strother, Georges Didi-Huberman, Rosemary Trokel, Jens Hoffmann, Bea Schlingelhoff, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Anne Immelé or Isa Genzken. The relationship to Humanities Research in each of their work is a fundamental element in my practice. Their attention to putting a work on display is, for example, an important element that I could mention.

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, First proposition - word, image & myth i, 2023, ExhibitionNR, BXL

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, First proposition - word, image & myth i, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

Ange-Frédéric Koffi, First proposition - word, image & myth i, 2023, ExhibitionNR, Brussel

What are the main challenges and uncertainties you faced when undertaking your works? And what are the key insights or takeaways you gained from?

AFK: Being accurate! The question of error is an interesting notion when you're experimenting. In the case of photography, I'm going to be extremely rigorous in my working protocol. However, I'm going to keep a certain laxity when it comes to the actual rendering of the image. Let me explain: I can control the film, my camera, my luminosity and so on. However, when you take a photograph, you never really know what might happen. A change in temperature affects the film, excess humidity appears in the shutter, dust, ...
There's always an external element that in film is extremely stimulating and at the same time can be extremely frustrating.

I leave my film in a tangible state in the sense that I don't develop my images until three or four years after I take them. This lapse of time inevitably leads to surprises. These surprises would be mistakes if I were in a relationship of efficiency. As a visual artist, I approach these images with a slightly more poetic relationship. I have to ask myself questions about the material of the image and how to display it correctly. These mistakes suddenly push me to question my photographic medium. It pushes me to rethink my exhibition protocol in order to find the right balance in relation to the image. I have to find out how to translate the intention of the image to the viewer. Because yes, in fine, this image is right. It perfectly conveys what was. It is a reality X. Whether there was too much light, a blur, sand, or just human error, this image remains accurate.

Exposition BPM - LUX - Paris, 2024

Exposition BPM - LUX - Paris, 2024

Exposition BPM - LUX - Paris, 2024

For students aspiring to build a career in visual arts, how do you see the role of social media and digital technologies in shaping the future of photography, and how do you navigate the evolving landscape while maintaining your artistic identity?

AFK: Double bind question! Over the last few decades, I've developed a much greater resistance to new technologies. It has to be said that I'm ‘old’ in my practice. I drastically avoid any use of digital technology. I do this because it's difficult for me to understand things empirically... However, I continue to force myself every day to have a healthy relationship with these new technologies.
I'd like to stress one point. These new technologies are and must remain solely tools. They are not an end in themselves.

Ange-Frédéric Koffi Instagram