Guest
The film portrays a vibrant range of contemporary and historical images by artists and photographers in Ghana. While glancing through the history of black & White photography in Ghana, the film focuses on present-day social practices of studio photographers and the impact of their work on contemporary image arts. In the small fishing towns of Ghana the photographer’s studio is the place to go and get “snapped“. Here you can wear the latest fashion or pose in a grand setting with a long lost friend. So everybody will remember you at your best and later the photograph might be used to help create a cement tomb sculpture or a life-size painting on your grave. The studio is an essential part of people’s life and reputation. A delightful, exuberant, documentary about the role of photography, photographers and the art of image making in Ghana. We meet the photographers, sculptors and painters who tell us in their own words about the economic, social, cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual motivations of their work. Innovation and improvisation abound, from the traveling photographer who has been making and selling his own cameras out of wood and scrap since the 1930’s to the studio photographers who specialize in providing elaborate backdrops that inspire their customers poses. Families commission life-size, lifelike, powerful sculptures of loved ones, crafted from small photographs as reference, to honor and remember the dead. Issues of gender arise when we realize all the artists and photographers are men but their customers are both men and women. The influence of American print media on local artists exists but the resulting work is so transformed in the process that the original source is almost unrecognizable. Highly recommended for African studies, media and culture studies, art and ritual, and gender.
