Photo albums and fancy dress: encounters with the African archive

• Art History, Film and Visual Studies research seminar

Speaker: Professor Tamar Garb, Durning Lawrence Professor in the History of Art, University College London

Venue: Strathcona Lecture Theatre 1

This lecture will look at the artifice and stageyness of African studio portraits via the project ‘Black Photo Album’ by Santu Mofokeng, the performed veracity of Samuel Fosso’s disguised self representations, and the ubiquity of a specific image of the young Nelson Mandela, widely regarded as ‘traditional’ and authentic. Throughout photographic portraiture is considered as a medium that mobilises the artifice of the studio, fancy dress and costume in the production of photogenic and fitting subjects.