Lifestyle FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2013 African art star Samuel Fosso returns to boyhood home Nigeria

hotographer Samuel Fosso, whose by his self-portraits, Descamps asked Fosso if renowned self-portraits have made him he could take the negatives with him back to Pone of Africa’s most popular artists, is Paris. A year later, Fosso received an Air exhibiting for the first time in Nigeria, where Afrique ticket for Mali, where he would win he grew up in the grip of the brutal Biafran his first award at the Bamako Encounters, a war. Fosso, a Cameroonian national, is known photo show that has become a major bienni- for taking chameleon-like photos of himself al exhibition. dressed as a range of figures from black African and American life-from musicians to Six-figure price tags pop-culture icons to political leaders. Today, Fosso’s self-portraits have been Nicknamed the “Man of a Thousand Faces”, his pictures have been shown in major muse- ums across Europe, in a career that has taken him far from Nigeria, his mother’s homeland. “It’s very emotional for me to be here,” the 51-year-old told AFP as he premiered his lat- est work at the fourth edition of Lagos Photo, an international photography festival. Fosso’s appearance is a major coup for organizers of the annual festival, which began last week and this year brings together some of the greatest names in contemporary photogra- phy, including Britain’s Martin Parr and Spain’s Cristina de Middel.”When I suggested bringing Samuel Fosso, everyone told me, Photographs are displayed during the Lagos Photo Festival in Lagos. — AFP Photos ‘You’re too late’, or ‘He’s too well-known’,” said the founder of the exhibition, Azu claimed nearly one million lives between Nwagbogu. 1967 and 1970 after the southeastern region “Then I contacted him via Facebook and broke away and declared itself a republic. he spoke to me in Igbo. I was shocked! I Aged barely five, Fosso lost his mother and didn’t know about this part of his life with found refuge in the forest with his grandpar- Nigeria.” Fosso needed nearly a year of ents, both of them from the Igbo ethnic preparation to produce “The Emperor of group at the centre of the conflict. “Thank A staff member of the Lagos Photo Festival Africa”, his piece for the exhibit-a collection God I had a robust constitution,” he said. walks past the festival’s poster. of five self-portraits in which he dresses as Fosso was the only child of his age to survive former Chinese Communist Party chairman from his entire family. included in collections at London’s Tate Mao Zedong and through which he explores The images of burnt and disfigured bod- Modern and the Pompidou Centre and Quai the relationship between China and Africa. ies, the bloated stomachs and twisted limbs Branly museums in Paris. The wealthy He also needed a production director and of malnourished children and hunger have Congolese entrepreneur Sindika Dokolo, a about 10 other people, including make-up remained with him, he says. Aged 10, Fosso major collector of contemporary African art, artists, technicians and a costume designer left his village in Nigeria, Ebunwana Edda, to bought three series of self-portraits from for a day’s shoot in the French capital, Paris. work in his uncle’s shoe-making shop in Fosso, including “African Spirits”, a homage This is a far cry from Fosso’s first studio, in Bangui, the capital of the Central African to major figures of the pan-Africanism move- the Central African Republic, where at the Republic. Cameroonian photographer Samuel Fosso ment and the fight for civil rights in the age of just 13 he began photographing him- Three years later, in 1975, he opened his poses next to a self-portrait, which sees him United States, which carry a price tag of at self using the unused ends of the rolls of film first photographic studio with the motto: dressed as the former Communist Party least 100,000 euros ($135,000). brought in by his clients. “But it was already a “With Studio National, you will be beautiful, chairman Mao Zedong. But Fosso has not altogether left his studio major production at the time,” said gallery stylish, dainty and hard to forget.” Once the in the Miskine district of Bangui. Despite his owner Jean-Marc Patras, who has represent- shop shut in the evening, he made himself up Fosso took the photos for himself and as a success and daily hardships in the Central ed him exclusively since 2001. “Even in the and got in front of the camera. Inspired by lasting memory for his as-yet unborn children African Republic, which is riven by instability 1970s, Samuel left nothing to chance, be it magazine cuttings, Fosso imitated his idols- and his maternal grandmother still in Nigeria, after rebels overthrew the previous govern- make-up, costumes or lighting.” black African and American musicians. He who repeatedly told him when he was a child ment in March, he said simply: “I’ve got my bought himself a pair of two-tone platform that he was “the best-looking in the village”. own way of doing things there.” Uprooted by Biafran war leather boots to dress up as Cameroonian- Until 1993, that is, when French photogra- And if he ever leaves, he says, it will not be Fosso has no photos from his own child- Nigerian singer Prince Nico Mbarga, whose pher Bernard Descamps, on the hunt for tal- for Europe but for his village in Nigeria, hood but says he has never forgotten the Highlife-style song “Sweet Mother” was then ent to show at a new African photography where his wife Nenna, mother of their four traumatic images of the Biafran war, which a radio hit. festival, arrived in Fosso’s studio. Impressed sons, was born. — AFP Black models slam racism in Brazil fashion in topless protest

ome 40 black models, most of them women, have staged a top- million people are of African descent, the world’s second largest black less protest in Rio de Janeiro against the low presence of Afro- population after that of Nigeria. But Afro-Brazilians complain of wide- SBrazilians on fashion catwalks. “What strikes you, your racism or spread racial inequality. me?” one of the female demonstrators wrote on her chest during the “If we are buying clothes, why can’t we parade in the (fashion) protest late Wednesday timed to coincide with Rio Fashion Week. The shows,” asked a 15-year-old model taking part in the protest. “Does demonstration also coincided with the signing of a deal between the that mean that only white women can sell and the rest of us can only Fashion Week organizers and the Rio ombudsman’s office setting a buy?” “Claiming to showcase Brazilian fashion without the real 10 percent quota for black models in fashion shows, the G1 news Brazilians amounts to showing Brazilian fashion (only) with white website reported. models,” said Jose Flores, a 25-year-old former model who now works “This agreement crowns a joint initiative that can open a space in advertising. After 13 years of debate, President Dilma Rousseff last Members of non profit organization EDUCAFRO prepare that does not yet exist,” said Moises Alcuna, a spokesman for year signed a controversial law that reserves half of seats in federal to make a performance in demand of more models of Educafro, a civil rights group championing the labor and educational universities to public school students, with priority given to Afro- African descent outside Fashion Rio in Rio de Janeiro, rights of blacks and indigenous people. More than half of Brazil’s 200 Brazilians and indigenous people. —AFP Brazil. — AFP photos