Join us for a talk given by Professor Bogumil Jewsiewicki on Sammy Baloji, a photographer and video artist born in 1978 in Katanga. February 24, 2014.
The talk will take place on February 24 at 3:30pm in Pugh Hall, Room 210.
Sammy Baloji is a photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works in Lubumbashi and Brussels, and held exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Bilbao, Cape Town and Bamako.
In 2007 Baloji was twice awarded at the African Photography Encounters in Bamako, Mali, with the Prize Africa in Creation (Prix Afrique en Creation) and the Prize for the Image (Prix pour l’image). In 2009 he was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands, for “his highly original inscription of the painful history of human and environmental exploitation into the present-day landscape, for bringing Congo’s current realities to an international platform, for his important contribution to the memory of the Congo providing a new reading of the present, and for his challenging demonstration that development can only be realized after duly taking into account the traumas of the past.”
In the past three years he has been analysing the architectural discipline conceived as ‘trace’, and has created works about the cultural, industrial and architectural heritage of his country, and particularly in the Katanga province.
More about the artist here.
Dr. Bogumil Jewsiewicki is a Professor of History at the History Department, Université Laval, Québec, Canada. He is Holder of the Canada research chair in comparative history of memory and Member of the Centre d’édudes africaines, Ècole des hautes etudes en sciences socials, Paris, France.
With the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.