Not even a proper name for the hole in the piste in Bamakos night club Hippodrome district. It is quite Rue 246. In the midday heat, the area appears to be deserted. Only on a Moped drives past, turn a donkey team squeaky around the corner stirring up a cloud of dust. Reddish dust settles on cars, street stalls and the Goods of a Toy store on a plastic tarpaulin – trucks, shovels, plastic guns “Made in China”. In a white walled plot is a verbeultes shield: CFP, “Cadre de Promotion pour la formation en photographie”. It may be that in this yard the most important photographers-school of Mali, the whole of West Africa hidden? To Call a man in a tattered guard’s Uniform appears and opens the wrought-iron gate.

In the courtyard, crouching students, under the palm trees to a teapot warmer with peppermint tea. At the rear, a gangly young man in Jeans and turn bend and shoes on his Laptop. John Moussa Kalapo beckons to the visitor. “For these images, I travelled through half of Mali,” says the photography Student and flips through a stack of prints. To see in the photos: green landscapes, steep mountain peaks, gnarled trees. A Mali beyond the usual war – and poverty reporting. Kalapo tells of myths, legends and ghosts that live in these “places of power”, from the ancestral faith, since the time of the legendary rich monarchy has survived all the Tribulations, the politics of the day. Then something Important occurs to him: “I’ll introduce you to our Director.” Kalapo may be as a multiple prize-winner of the Bamako Biennale is one of the rising Stars of Malian photography . Hierarchies, but must be respected.

cooperation

in Front of the Director’s office a hand-written table: on the one hand, the names of a dozen students. On the other, sorted by months, and Dollar amounts. “Our latest collaboration,” says school Director Youssouf Sogodogo: students to provide photos , the largest photo Bank in the world. Half of the fees the school reserves the right, and the other half to get the photographers paid. Together with the Swiss development organization Helvetas secure the financing of the CFP and a nearly cost-free studies.

Computer printer, even Leihkameras the school. In Mali, a tremendous luxury, after all, the country is among the twelve poorest in the world, 70 percent of the population as functionally illiterate. Photography not only opens up alternative ways of communication, but also a door to the Western world. Conceptual photography is the latest addition to the curriculum: As the offshoot of the “Culture & Commerce” of the CFP in the year 2010, a cooperation offer, “hardly knew anyone on the spot, which means concept art,” says Sogodogo and smiles, embarrassed: “Malians have experience in order to put a wedding couple in the scene. But it is another thing to illustrate abstract concepts such as friendship, work or health.”

Mali enjoys among connoisseurs a fabulous reputation as the home of legends such as Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keita, portraitist, found in the sixties a pictorial language between Tradition and Modernity. Sogodogo has exhibited in Europe and North America. Nevertheless, none of the skilled photographers could survive on the local market, says the Director of the school, the competition is stiff: hundreds of Studios for wedding and passport photos – organized in the nine photographers associations – advertise in Bamako to customers. A photo seldom cost more than a pile of mangoes, but this is for the Malians in times of crisis is often too expensive. Who removed around a road intersection of the CFP, the Studio of Abdoulaye Baby, the former Malian culture visited the Minister and Hoff-based court photographer of pop stars such as Salif Keita, you can choose between the Eiffel tower or the Alps Wallpaper as a Background for the family photo.

John Moussa Kalapo is a Student at the photography school. Photo: Jonathan Fischer

Karim Sidibé, who leads the Studio of his father, the Leica and Hasselblad cameras as Museum pieces on the shelf. “I take photographs now digital,” he says, and it sounds like an excuse. His workplace is on the road: a table with a soldering iron, a rag and a broken camera Housings. Cheap models that would repair in the West no one. In the Studio, where the father once iconic shots of ladies in Party dresses and young people with their mopeds, the time seems to stand still: the same chess Board floor, the same striped curtains. Only the customers are missing. “Since the civil war tourists, who order a silver bromide print to me only rarely.”

“We are first and foremost artists”

On the CFP, it mourns to this past. “We honor our ancestors,” says Sogodogo, “but we have rested for too long on the laurels of photographers such as Malick Sidibé.” His goal was for the students to current art discourses. Almost every year, CFP-students are represented on the Biennale of Bamako, the most important photo art event in Africa. Not always your images conform to the expectations of Western visitors: “Some people would define the problems of our country,” says the CFP-graduate Harandane Dicko. “But we are first and foremost artists.” In 2018, for example, showed Fototala King Masasy portraits of market women, glasses sellers or street mechanics, posing with their devices in front of a yellow painted wall. He is brimming over with optimism. Mali says Dicko, was a stove there is a conflict. However, Malians have to make all this political reports? Or, you may pick other topics as Islamism, Migration or poverty?

One of the most well-known, Biennale winning Work Dickos shows contours behind mosquito nets. People who sleep on the streets Bamakos. But this story also has a socio-political relevance? “I discovered late that photography can be art,” says Dicko. A long time he had helped out in the passport photo and wedding Studio of his uncle, and bored. A two-week course at the CFP opened his eyes: why don’t everyday items to scan, he noticed on the street? For many, this was incomprehensible: “My Studio colleagues of the past, from languages to me, to be a true photographer.”

a construction worker is a photographer

Today, Dicko works as an assistant to the CFP, together with the photographer Fatoumata Diabate. As a woman, you have additional hurdles to take, says Diabate. An unconventional aunt gave her, the high-school dropout, discovered by a construction crew road ditches, it is recommended to apply for a photographer’s Workshop. “At the time, a photographer was considered a men’s profession. My mother, however, was strictly. And my father doubted the value of my work – because the training was free of charge,” she recalls.

in 2004, finished Diabate as one of the first graduates of the three year training at the CFP. Since then, she photographed preferably, Malian women have emancipated themselves from their role as housewife, in their education, invest, or own businesses. In addition, it represents a continuation of the portrait Tradition in his own way, build your Studio on the road and let passers-by yourself stage accessories such as Malian fabrics and hats with.

half of The fees the school reserves the right, and the other half get the photographers.

For Director Sogodogo are students like Dicko, Diabate or Kalapo proof that you can accomplish it from the site in Bamako of an international. Kalapo, for example, had worked as an accountant, as his uncle gave a cheap camera. “With the images I was able to finally find my language,” he says.

Since then, Kalapo has poking about with a series about the “modern slavery of child labour” debates. Most recently, he completed a fellowship at the Market Photo Workshop school in Johannesburg, South Africa. What he considers to be the biggest obstacles in Mali? To download “a large file to the Internet, you can take a night. If not before the power goes out.” Nevertheless, Kalapo sees his future. He works as an Intern at the “Mali-Photo-Project”, an international Initiative for the preservation of the heritage of Malian photographers like Malick Sidibé, Aderahmane Sakaly, Adama Kouyaté and Tijani Adigun Sitou.

He can afford it: On the table, showing the students the income from the sale to Getty, ranked Kalapo with a four-digit sum on the top spot. This is progress: if any of the Agency photos, a international journal or the business section of a European newspaper open, from a Malian photo students comes.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 22.01.2019, 19:03 PM