ART AFRICA launched snapped in collaboration with LagosPhoto Festival, entitled REGIMES OF TRUTH!
ON THE COVER: Samuel Fosso, Black Pope #27840, 2017. © Samuel Fosso. Courtesy Jean Marc Patras, Paris.
We are back for yet another edition of snapped magazine and this time we explore the 8th edition of the LagosPhoto Festival 2017, themed REGIMES OF TRUTH. This important cultural event shares our vision to explore and celebrate photography from Africa while interrogating important historical and contemporary issues. Their unbiased approach of presenting a wide-range of photographic approaches which included historical work, archival material, reportage, collage, and conceptual and non-conceptual image based presentations, an approach snapped values too. We believe this approach is vital if we hope to build a thriving eco-system and economy around African photographic practice today.
REGIMES OF TRUTH explored the pursuit for, and presentation of truth, in contemporary society – gleaning inspiration from the writings of some of the 19th and 20th centuries’ most influential literary realists and intellectuals. Gustave Flaubert’s L’Empire de la Bêtis (The Empire of Stupidity), Orwell’s creation of “doublethink” from his dystopian novel from 1984, as well as the writings of Foucault, Achebe and Huxley – all possessed foresight about contemporary society’s concurrent quandary – whereby access to information on one hand, and substantive facts on the other hand, are masked by a constructed rhetoric. REGIMES OF TRUTH thus ruminates on the tension and confluence between veracity and artifice in society today.
I am also very excited to announce our collaboration with Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation and LagosPhoto Festival, who joins snapped as Editor-At-Large. In these pages Mariella Franzoni talks to Azu who shares some of his insights on the industry, establishing LagosPhoto, and his relationship with curating photography. Snapped will also be available at MIA Photo Fair in Milan, where Azu will be speaking in a panel discussion.
In Azu’s own words, “Contemporary photography serves as a gatekeeper of reality and truth – as well as a conjurer of artistic imaginings for the viewer’s pleasure and introspection – it is therefore the ideal medium to explore the search for reality and truth in contemporary society.”
We look forward to sharing more about our collaboration soon.
Enjoy the issue!
Brendon Bell-Roberts,
Editor
