Double Exposure: The Congolese Bourgeoisie in the Colonial and Family Photographic Album
Friday, February 9, 2018, at 18:30
Concordia University, EV-1.605
Cover of brochure “Album de Famille,” InforCongo, 1958. Photographer unknown
Sandrine Colard
Assistant Professor / Provost’s Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
In the wake of the World War II, the Belgian Congo saw the rise of a new educated and westernized African bourgeoisie, the so-called “évolués.” At the same time, the anti-colonialism of the new world order led the Belgian authorities to substitute the idea of colonialism with that of a more seductive “Belgian-Congolese community.” This talk explores how the “évolués” became a strategic subject of colonial representation in the shaping of an ideological iconography of kinship between Europeans and Africans, but also how private Congolese families’ albums portrayed the middle-class’ relationship to that photographic ideal.
Dr. Sandrine Colard is Assistant Professor / Provost’s Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow in the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She holds a PhD in art history from Columbia University. Dr. Colard is a historian of modern and contemporary African arts and photography. Based on research conducted in Belgium and in the DRC, her current book project examines the history of photography in the colonial Congo.
