Description
Photographs by Joana Choumali
With an essay by Azu Nwagbogu
Published in 2016
ISBN 978-0-9922404-9-3
Hard cover, cloth bound
Full colour
128 pages
280 × 230 mm
ZAR 710.00 incl VAT
WHERE TO BUY THIS BOOK:
info@fourthwallbooks.com
Hââbré, The Last Generation, by Joana Choumali, the joint winner of the 2016 Fourthwall Books Photobook Award.
Hââbré is a series of portraits of people who represent perhaps the last generation to bear the ritual scarification associated with a number of ethnic groups in various parts of West Africa. These lush images, shot in Choumali’s studio in Abidjan, are accom- panied by excerpts of interviews conducted by Choumali with her sitters, which reveal a range of responses to scarification, from pride to ambivalence and even outright rejection of the facial markings. These portraits and texts examine the complex role of tradition in an urban setting such as Abidjan and suggest the shifting nature of the concepts of beauty and identity.
Joana Choumali was born in Côte d’Ivoire in 1974. She studied graphic arts in Casablanca, Morocco, and then worked as an art director in an advertising agency before embarking on her photographic career. She lives and works in Abidjan.
Reviews:
https://www.lensculture.com/articles/joana-choumali-haabre-the-last-generation
http://www.contemporaryand.com/exhibition/joana-choumali-haabre/
http://blog.leica-camera.com/2015/02/04/joana-choumali-haabre-the-last-generation/
