During this FESTIVAL FRANCOPHONIE , don’t miss on First Thursday a very special solo photography exhibition “Au rythme du pays” by Samuel Brawerman at 6pm.
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, lived a king. He had a neighbour. His neighbour had a friend and his friend was the main character of our story: Sam.
Sam was born in Belgium. Yes, he had to come from there as his loves mayonnaise. He also loves wandering in the streets and imagining people’s lives. As a kid he used to stand up on his football to see people passing by through the window of his living room. He would stare for hours. “See how all these people how they come and go? Where do they go?”.
He then grew up and like everyone went to school, then the harder school then the school of life. After 2 years in beautiful Paris, where we usually got lost in Jazz bars in St Germain, he decided to go explore the world. He though India would be a great place to start. HE described his first trip as “slap in the face”, “A wake-up call”. It made him want to travel more. He then lived and worked for a while in Uganda where he made a lot of Ugandan and Kenyan friends there a learned to love Africa.
He was then offered several jobs in several different countries…two of then were in DRC… DRC… No one in his family had ever been there. He didn’t know anything about the country. He had only been told by an ex-colleagues who had worked for 30 years in Africa: “Do not go in DRC. It’s totally crazy”. So he went… as he came out of the Airport… he felt that huge amount of energy. Too much. Too soon. Looked back to get back on the plane. Too late. “it’s ok” he though “only 1 year and then I leave”… 5 years later.. still there…and loving it…”It’s like a drug. You love it but you know you need to stop”. “This country is like an open air-theatre: as soon as you come out of your house something will happen. Something sad, funny, interesting…”
Today we open the curtains for you too… Mbote.
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“Au rythme du pays” by Samuel Brawerman,
Solo photography exhibition.
We know you are in a hurry. Turn off your phone. Stop listening to what your friend is currently saying. Pick up a beer and come get lost in the streets in DRC.
See the smiles, feel the energy, hear the people all around you, wipe that seat off your forehead. Stay alert. This is Congo.
The various effects have come from the use of special films (black and white infrared film and color, film lith, films adapted to a certain type of light…), special techniques of shooting (the use of filters, the use of the zoom to create a movement effect, overprints, voluntary camera shake, exposure time…), a particular process of film development (cross processing, treatment without fixer bath…), of plastic works on the negative or the slide (coloring, scratching…), of a digital acquisition diverted from its naturalistic function (moving of the support during the digitization, superimposition of a negative and a slide of the same view…), digital processing of the image using computer tools, special prints or photomontages…and more!
In addition to the distorted stroll through the recesses of Paris, this photographic series revisits the early 2000s where silver and digital photographs coexisted: when photography was moving from analogue to digital. Digital, it can be argued, has not yet taken precedence over the classical methods, and here, we see the exercise of photography blended from craftsmanship and modern techniques.
From blind work, image capture, the development and digitization of negatives or slides, to computer editing, the universe of possibilities offered then, not a wider variety of graphic results than today, but a wider range of methods and techniques to achieve stunning images, in a context of technological transition.