“Telling Time”,

The theme of the 10th Bamako encounters

The 2015 edition is an “anniversary edition”. Apart from the artistic aspect of the event, this edition of the Encounters helps to focus the news from Mali on cultural affairs of a more “positive” nature in terms of image and economic revival.

There will be a retrospective focus on past editions. The artistic project is constructed around the narrative of Time. Photographers are invited to create a narrative of Africa, not through a view of things on the surface but, rather, through the way they use the image to delve into the reality of their time. The approach is designed to rethink the link between the past, the present and the future of the continent. As an approach, it is perfectly suited to deal with the recent upheavals experienced not only in Mali, but also in North Africa with its Arab Springs and, more recently, in Burkina Faso.

The Artistic Director Bisi Silva with associate curators Antawan I. Byrd and Yves Chatap, hopes to create a fresh view of the creation of photography and video as practised in Africa. There are both documentary and artistic works, as well as forms closer to installations. A lot of the work is sourced in film and picture archives. Humour abounds and there is no lack of selfcriticism on the part of the artists – both of themselves and their countries. The religious question arises in a curious and subtle fashion in the works to be displayed, bearing in mind the crisis reigning over the continent at the moment.

The Bamako Encounters 2015 is organised around an international exhibition with artists chosen from a call for applications. This year a record number of dossiers were received from the 54 African countries and the diaspora: a total of 800 applications – four times more than for the exhibition in 2011.