Today, Malian photographers mainly work for four different markets. They make portraits in the photo studio, cover wedding ceremonies and create works for the (inter)national art scene. Since the country’s democratization in 1991 a fourth market emerged, namely picturing international development and humanitarian projects accomplished in the country and the wider sub-region by NGOs and since 2013 also by the UN peace mission MINUSMA. 

By looking at photographers’ digital archives one realizes that some of them are coming back with two bodies of work - an official one and a more “secret” one. The commissioned work is mostly taken along international aesthetics which feed into the visual discourse that highlights how the internationals help (actively) to relieve the pain of distant (passive) others. These pictures have to be taken in a manner that they provoke ‘a community of interest with the oppressed and the exploited’ (Arendt 1973) among audiences predominantly in rich and stable societies in the west. The second body of work which is made in scarce moments of spare time reveals a complete other perspective on people, landscapes and infrastructures, political situations and everyday life encountered during the journeys. By juxtaposing these different approaches, it becomes clear that Malian photographers can be very much seen as visual world brokers. They understand how to play on different visual levels to make on the one hand pictures that fit into the international humanitarian aid circuit and on the other hand subvert this visual standardised agenda immediately by contrasting these pictures with a more personal, poetic and intimate view on what is going on in their country. While the humanitarian and development pictures end up in an international media flow on global crisis, the more intimate pictures stay in the realm of the invisible.

Program of the Colloquium