Urbanautica

MARTINA BACIGALUPO. ON AFRICA SOCIETY AND MIGRATIONS

by Elisa Dainelli

Today colonialism as such does not exist anymore, but the underlying political relationships between dominant and subject societies are almost unchanged. This is what drives my visual research.

© Martina Bacigalupo and Magule Wango from the series "Umumalayika"

You developed extensive photographic documentation on African society and migrations. How did this interest in Africa start?

Martina Bagicalupo (MB): In 2007 I was offered a job as the photographer of the UN Peacekeeping mission in Burundi: it was supposed to be only for a few months and I ended up staying there for 10 years! As a white photographer, I quickly realized the ambiguous role that photography played on the continent, perpetuating the one-side narrative whereby Africa is a place of misery and violence and needs the West to get out of it. I thus started to question the very language of my expression, photojournalism, which flourished side by side with western imperialism and served it - directly or indirectly - for almost two centuries. Today colonialism as such does not exist anymore, but the underlying political relationships between dominant and subject societies are almost unchanged. This is what drives my visual research.

During the years, you used different approaches to the questions you investigated. In projects like "Wanawake. Being a woman in Congo" (2011) or "At sea" (2018), you have a documentary approach. In other works, like "Gulu real Art Studio" (2014), exhibited this year at 'Cortona on the Move,' your process is rather artistic and conceptual. From a methodological point of view, what is your approach to the medium? How do you envision or conceptualize the projects?

MB: As a photographer, I don’t want to limit my work to one form, and that is for two reasons. Firstly, because our gaze – and our approach - develops and transforms through time – and luckily so. I personally needed time to tune up to what Tina Campt calls the low frequencies* of groups of people who, silenced by an unjust system, develop alternative ways of expression, often almost inaudible. Secondly, I think that every story, for the way it has come to you and for its proper nature, demands a specific treatment. The project “Wanawake”, for instance, came as an assignment for MSF on childbirth in DRC. Its clear human rights take, pushed me to use the classic documentary form I was familiar with: 6x6 black and white film.

© Martina Bacigalupo from the series "Wanawake. Being a woman in Congo"

In “My name is Filda Adoch”, that was shot at the same time but as a personal project, even though I used the same traditional photojournalistic form, I experimented a different relation between images and text. Instead of using “neutral” journalistic captions, I’ve asked Filda to comment on the images, giving to the reader her perspective on things. This allowed me to explore one of my leitmotifs, the power dynamics between the photographer and the photographed. The “Gulu Real art Studio” project has yet another genesis. One day I bumped into a few headless portraits trashed in the bin of a small studio in North Uganda. These discarded photos where for me so compelling that for over two years, with the permission and the help of the owner of the studio, I gathered, selected and edited them. The project took the shape of a colored photo archive.
Generally, as I move from a project to another, my gaze sharpens, I slowly see things I didn’t see before and I try to tell them in their own, specific way.

© Martina Bacigalupo from the series "Gulu real Art Studio"

© Martina Bacigalupo from the series "Gulu real Art Studio"

You traveled a lot in Africa and the world and observed many different situations. You are deeply engaged in a "participant observation." How, from your perspective, has the debate on post-colonialism evolved over the years? Are we facing exploitation of the question or not? And what is the real impact of photography if there is any?

MB: Many years ago, I was sharing with a philosopher friend my uneasiness with the legacy of colonialism and its lingering forms of oppression on the African continent. She trusted the debate had evolved and could hardly believe that I was referring to the present time. Unfortunately, the gap between the world of thoughts and the world of things is huge. The control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands by European powers is not only a very grim part of our common history but is a present reality. As such, it must be addressed. I thus welcome the attention recently given to the perspective from which stories are told as it widens our understanding of the world and is long due. Certainly, some works are more honest than others. The decline of the press and the rising competition between photographers in search of appealing subjects have played a role in the exploitation of the question. But if the “trend” of postcolonialism allows photographers to set their attention on this issue and develop projects around it, so be it. We’ll just need to sharpen our attention to identify those who are using the issue for their own interests. And, in my opinion, they remain a small minority.

© Martina Bacigalupo from the series "Umumalayika"

In some of your projects, like "At sea" or "Wana Watiti. Early marriages in the Comoros" (2015), your portraits and your documentation are more than a narration: it is a real political message, a complaint. What is, for you, the political value of photography?

MB: When I started photography, I was mainly interested in human rights advocacy, especially minority groups, from women (early marriages, maternal health, domestic violence) to LGBTQI groups and ethnic minorities (Batwas in Burundi, San people in the Kalahari). But this quickly evolved into a deeper analysis of the way we see and represent the other. “At sea”, for instance, initially an assignment for Elle Magazine on the Search and rescue ship “Aquarius” in the Mediterranean Sea, ended up becoming a preparatory trip to the “Reverie project”, an in-depth research into the way we represent migrants. I believe that when we discover there are many ways of seeing, we become curious and want to see more. If photography has any political function, it is possibly this : enable us to see more, see better. And then, perhaps, change.

“I left Syria in 2011 and went to Libya with my husband. They were telling us that there was work there because with the death of Gaddafi things would get better. My house had been destroyed. At that time I had only a 7 month old child. We fled through Lebanon by car, then we took a plane to Cairo and then it took us three days to arrive in Libya. At that time we were fine, there was work and we lived well for two years. My husband was a painter. I was a hairdresser. My husband’s family was also with us while mine stayed in Damascus. In Libya I had two more children. One day we were in a car and people with guns stopped us, made us get out of the car and left us on foot. I had two children and we were left in the middle of the road alone in the night. We decided to move to another city. But there they didn’t pay my husband anymore. Every time he asked for money they put a gun to his head. One day my husband went to the police and after a few days some men came and stabbed my husband in the leg. To continue working he had to pay. And the more time passed the more he had to pay. We finished our money. We couldn’t take it anymore. We went to get a boat. I was praying…I was so afraid for my children on that boat…but I was more afraid of Libya than of the sea. There were 16 of us on a very small wooden boat. When we arrived the sea was big and we saw a boat and we asked to help us but they left us and then we saw a big red and white boat that came to save us. I think they were Italians. I just want to be safe with my children and give them a good life, that’s all.”
Rim, 24, Syria, December 10, 2018, on the Aquarius, Mediterranean Sea, International Waters.

With the researcher Sharon Sliwinski you worked on the "Reverie project" about the representation of migrants. What does "representing" migrants mean to you? What are the pitfalls and difficulties in this attempt? How to avoid slipping into rhetoric and give them their voice back? Tell us more about this project and its achievements.

MB: The complexity and scale of the global migrant crisis has opened an unprecedented political quandary, capturing the attention of politicians, policy makers, and the public. Moreover, it has opened the debate about our image-making practices: do we need to make everything visible in order to capture the public’s attention, even if it means violating human dignity? Both obsessed with the issue, Sharon and I developed the “Reverie project”, an attempt to offer a form of temporary refuge to displaced people of the Centre La Roseraie in Geneva. We invited them to spend five minutes alone with a camera in a quiet place where they could let their thoughts flow. Afterwards, we asked them to describe their experience. We wanted to give people the opportunity to undergo a regenerative retreat from the contemporary media environment and support a form of solidarity based on the vulnerability we all share. In the final video, there are no names, no migratory routes, no shocking information. Just people sitting on their own, sometimes in silence, sometimes singing, sometimes talking or moving or laughing. The project also aimed at challenging the traditional division of roles between subject and object, as it opened the “reverie space” to community employees, volunteers, and ourselves.

Martina Bacigalupo (website Agence VU')
Collezione Donata Pizzi

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