BOOKS
Catalog of the 67th Salon de Montrouge
Régis Samba-Kounzi's practice explores the intersections between long-term photographic narratives and cultural critique, questioning the consensus on the identity of marginalised communities in Africa, and the oblivion and offense to which they are subjected. His work draws inspiration from this "given" of activism, intimacy, and issues of class and race linked to colonial and post-colonial history. In the 2000s, he took part in the North/South commission of Act Up-Paris, where he met Julien Devemy, his former lifelong companion and accomplice. They co-created the installation Nos communautés de résistance for the exhibition Exposé-es at Palais de Tokyo, as if to seal their common journey, one marked by their commitment to the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The lack of images and documentation of LGBTQIA+ communities in Africa, as well as its connection to the effects of coloniality and its influence on mores and public policies, led Régis Samba-Kounzi to highlight the complexity of these life paths in the Projet minorités he has been developing since 2010. The multitude of accounts – and their corresponding visual archive – attempt to explain what it means to be gay, lesbian, and trans today in Africa, where over half of the fifty-four states have repressive laws against queer people. Without falling into the trap of a counterproductive North/South divide, the artist gives a voice, a face, and a body to those seeking their own terms and ways of being in the world. He does not consider them as objects of study, but as the subjects, part of an affective fabric, which gives us a glimpse into a "we" made up of both those who are concerned and others.
By giving meaning to their histories and genealogies, Régis Samba-Kounzi challenges norms and dominant narratives. He reveals the consequences of this erasure from the public space, and raises questions about our collective responsibility to care for our communities in urgent need, and to pass on their stories. Perhaps this is exactly what lies on the margins of his photographs and installations: spaces of passage, of transition, of resistance, of emancipation and care, of struggle and love, of work and friendship. All this, and no doubt much more, constitutes an effective and sensitive constellation in the artist’s artwork. This constellation marks us, in order to get rid of the nauseating habits we have inherited from Western imperialism, which continues to stigmatise Afro-descendants and queer people.
Undoubtedly, there are political photographs, but there is certainly also a politics of photography - methods employed to document what has not been sufficiently documented. Régis Samba-Kounzi has a special relationship with the people he photographs, one that moves from the intimate to the public and extends beyond the exhibition space: perhaps in those knots that intertwine ethics and aesthetics, or in those that blur the boundaries between art and politics.
Clément Raveu
---------
Translator : Olivia Baes
1) Exposé-es, based on Ce que le sida m'a fait by Élisabeth Lebovici, was held at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, from February 17 to May 14, 2023. Curator: François Piron.
2) The phrase "communities of resistance" is borrowed from bell hooks, who felt the need to create what Thích Nhất Hạnh calls "spaces where we can heal and come back to ourselves fully, more often", bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, South End Press (Boston), 1999, p. 213.
3) Régis Samba-Kounzi, Projet Minorités, une archive visuelle queer, (2010-).
Régis Samba-Kounzi's practice explores the intersections between long-term photographic narratives and cultural critique, questioning the consensus on the identity of marginalised communities in Africa, and the oblivion and offense to which they are subjected. His work draws inspiration from this "given" of activism, intimacy, and issues of class and race linked to colonial and post-colonial history. In the 2000s, he took part in the North/South commission of Act Up-Paris, where he met Julien Devemy, his former lifelong companion and accomplice. They co-created the installation Nos communautés de résistance for the exhibition Exposé-es at Palais de Tokyo, as if to seal their common journey, one marked by their commitment to the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The lack of images and documentation of LGBTQIA+ communities in Africa, as well as its connection to the effects of coloniality and its influence on mores and public policies, led Régis Samba-Kounzi to highlight the complexity of these life paths in the Projet minorités he has been developing since 2010. The multitude of accounts – and their corresponding visual archive – attempt to explain what it means to be gay, lesbian, and trans today in Africa, where over half of the fifty-four states have repressive laws against queer people. Without falling into the trap of a counterproductive North/South divide, the artist gives a voice, a face, and a body to those seeking their own terms and ways of being in the world. He does not consider them as objects of study, but as the subjects, part of an affective fabric, which gives us a glimpse into a "we" made up of both those who are concerned and others.
By giving meaning to their histories and genealogies, Régis Samba-Kounzi challenges norms and dominant narratives. He reveals the consequences of this erasure from the public space, and raises questions about our collective responsibility to care for our communities in urgent need, and to pass on their stories. Perhaps this is exactly what lies on the margins of his photographs and installations: spaces of passage, of transition, of resistance, of emancipation and care, of struggle and love, of work and friendship. All this, and no doubt much more, constitutes an effective and sensitive constellation in the artist’s artwork. This constellation marks us, in order to get rid of the nauseating habits we have inherited from Western imperialism, which continues to stigmatise Afro-descendants and queer people.
Undoubtedly, there are political photographs, but there is certainly also a politics of photography - methods employed to document what has not been sufficiently documented. Régis Samba-Kounzi has a special relationship with the people he photographs, one that moves from the intimate to the public and extends beyond the exhibition space: perhaps in those knots that intertwine ethics and aesthetics, or in those that blur the boundaries between art and politics.
Clément Raveu
---------
Translator : Olivia Baes
1) Exposé-es, based on Ce que le sida m'a fait by Élisabeth Lebovici, was held at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, from February 17 to May 14, 2023. Curator: François Piron.
2) The phrase "communities of resistance" is borrowed from bell hooks, who felt the need to create what Thích Nhất Hạnh calls "spaces where we can heal and come back to ourselves fully, more often", bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, South End Press (Boston), 1999, p. 213.
3) Régis Samba-Kounzi, Projet Minorités, une archive visuelle queer, (2010-).
