"Snap Judgments" in Ottawa
"Snap Judgments" in Ottawa
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Guy Tillim, Ntokozo and his brother Vusi Tshabalala at Ntokozo’s place, Milton Court, Pritchard Street, Johannesburg, 2004 © Guy Tillim/International Center of Photography |
For many in the Western world, impressions of Africa are often limited to media images of disease, conflict, poverty and corruption. A more complex reality emerges in “Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography,” on view at the National Gallery of Canada until January 6. Organized by the noted critic and curator Okwui Enwezor, the exhibition covers work by 40 African artists whose points of view range across photo media. Subjects range from identity issues and postcolonial memory to the modern African urban reality to localized responses to the global touristic gaze. But Enwezor is careful to dismiss any notions of myth or stereotype. Instead, his exhibition centres on the intriguing extremes and contradictions that form the dynamic social flux of modern Africa. It’s an important perspective that disrupts linear views of little-known places and opens the possibility for new understandings firmly rooted in the universal experience of public narratives and daily life. (380 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON.)
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Zohra Bensemra, Law-and-order enforcement officers at the Ain Benian police school in Algiers, on the day of graduation of the new self-defence and close combat squad—January 27, 1999, 1999 © Zohra Bensemra |
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