IMAGING CULTURE, photography in Mali, West Africa

453pp., map, b/w & colour illus., paperback, Bloomington, 2021

A socio-historical study of the meaning and function of photography in Mali, West Africa, from the 1930s to the present, focusing on the studio and documentary work of professional urban photographers in Bamako, the capital, and in smaller cities such as Mopti and Ségu.

"Imaging Culture challenges the Eurocentric framing that has dominated the critical reception of African photography since the 1990s. By exploring the work and professional genealogies of Malian photographers through the lens of key Mande social and aesthetic concepts, Keller offers a compelling alternative that is at once both culturally specific and transcultural. The volume highlights photography's critical role at key moments of Mali's complicated history of liberation, dictatorship, civil unrest, democracy, and urbanization, and is rich with details of the lived experience of the photographers and their clients, informed by indigenous concepts of modernity." Barbara E. Frank, Stony Brook University

Candace M. Keller is Associate Professor of African Art and Visual Culture in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design, directs the Archive of Malian Photography and is Associate Director of Matrix: Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, Michigan State University.