Ouagadougou/New York
Joana Choumali
2016
Numeric photographs on canvas, hand embroidered with DMC cotton thread
50 x 80 cm
Ouagadougou/New York by Joana Choumali is a diptych of two photographs, both embroidered with coloured threads. The left one shows a stony field with a truck and some green trees in the background. In the foreground walks an African girl. Behind her is a stitched pattern out of coloured triangles. In front of her is a white silhouette of a smaller marching child. It is taken in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.
As counterpart, the right photo shows a street scene in New York, United States. There are skyscrapers and – once again – some green trees in the background. Men in dark suits are traversing a crosswalk. A child in multi-coloured clothes crosses the street in the opposite direction than the men and looks towards the beholder. It fits into the white silhouette of the left picture. Whilst – in both images – the embroideries in the background are mostly tidy sewn, the stitching in the foreground – especially the ones related to humans – leave long strings below the proper photographs.
The diptych is part of Joana’s series “Translation”, which she started in 2011, during the political and social crises in Ivory Coast, her home country. For months, the two opposite parties where involved in fierce power struggles. Often they were bloody, with many civil victims on both sides. Joana wondered, how her life would be, in case she was forced to leave her beloved land. In these circumstances, she reflected further upon migration, particularly about the exodus from the African continent to the Western world.
On one hand, migration concerns the leaving people, which have to live in a foreign environment: unknown landscapes, different climate, another culture, new rules in an unknown society, frequently alone among foreigners and often with an alien language. This is vividly depicted in the New York part of the diptych. The child did not fit into the scene, not by the clothes, the age, the skin colour and even not by the walking direction. Moreover, it seems that it searches for visual contact, while the people around appear introverted. It is a human being cut out of one life and teleported into another.
Nevertheless, migration also affects the left behind people and societies. In the picture of Ouagadougou, the girl has to do her way alone, without her sibling or friend. A shadow – or in this case the cut out white silhouette – stays with her: within reach, but unattainable. The departure effects families, where brother or sister, son or daughter or mother or father are missing. In the society, it might be a colleague or a friend as an essential part of the community, a vacant place. Perhaps they are longing to follow one day or waiting that the missing people come back.
Like the abandoned people in Africa, Penelope from Homer’s Ulysses waited twenty years for her adventuring husband. The faithful wife of the hero in this Greek mythology did needlework to reinforce her patience while hoping Odysseus to come home. She had many suitors in the twenty years enduring absence and developed various strategies to delay marrying one of them. During the last three years, Penelope weaved a burial shroud for Odysseus father, pretending that she would choose one of the candidates, when she has it finished. However, she undid a part of the shroud every night. Hence, the allusion to Penelope that the artist does by her stitching.
Moreover, by embroidering her photos, Joana is adding a dream world to the shown reality. The desert scene in Ouagadougou gets colourful due to the triangle pattern and the fresh green trees. In the sky over New York appear gentle white clouds and the trees are flowing to make the rejecting atmosphere of the big city more pleasant. At the same time, the needlework reminds the waiting of the left behind people, who are faithfully and patiently expecting the return of the migrants, like Penelope.
Additionally, just as Penelope, Joana did not finish her needlework. The hanging threads open the possibility to continue, never come to an end, like the unfulfilled dreams of the by migration affected people. Simultaneously, the sagging strings remind aerial roots. Have the depicted people lost their firm roots and are searching for new grip? Could they find it? Will the journey be over, when equality of north and south is reached and everyone has found the dreamed better life?
Joana Choumali
Born in 1974 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Joana studied Graphic Arts in Casablanca (Morocco). Before starting her carrier as photographer, she worked as an Art Director for an advertising agency. Since 2000, she participated in numerous personal and group exhibitions on the African continent, in France and Great Britain. Her several times awarded series “Hââbré*, the last generation” (2013-14) was shown besides in Africa and Europe as well in the United States and Malaysia. The depicted scarification is an old African tradition. Once being a norm with high social status, it is nowadays vanishing, due to the shift of values in contemporary societies. In consequence, this series is a witness of former times.
Also dealing with the past and present is the series “Resilients” (2013-14), where Joana photographed African women in the traditional clothes of her female ancestors. Whereas in “Awoulaba/taille fine” (2013-2015), the artist proposes new models. Around 2011 local manufacturers in the Ivory Coast started to modify and create new mannequins. They are not designed like idealised western thin models, but take account of the African female physique, with wide hips, well-filled breasts, and full arms. Even the skin colours are more adapted and the faces are more individualised. In Baule, one of the numerous languages spoken in Ivory Coast, they are called Awoulaba – beauty queen. Joana documented the making and the presentation of the Awoulaba. Moreover, she superimposed images of real women with mannequins in the Awoulaba and taille fine style (slim waist), with the result to show fusions of real and idealised women. The series was presented several times, latest in 2017 at the PhEST in Monopoli, Italy.
Likewise, “Adorn” (2015) questions the western determined aesthetic ideal, once more with a partly documentary character. Nevertheless, it is about the reinterpretation of European beauty standards by present-day black African women. One part illustrates the manipulations by make-up and hairdressing. The second part – which was on view in the Pavilion of the Ivory Coast at the Venice Biennale 2017 – shows the perfectly styled women. At the same occasion, the series “Translation” (2016-17) was presented. Here the artist questions about migration and its effects on the concerned societies and the enduring dream of African people to find a better life in the western world, despite obstacles like visa requirements. “Ouagadougou New York” is our artwork of the month of January 2018.
Joana’s recent series “ça va aller…” (it will be OK) (2016) was taken three weeks after the terrorist attacks in Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast) on the 13 March 2016. Bassam was for her always an area of peaceful retreat, with positive memory of childhood experience and family meetings, until the day of the raid. Even though, the events caused a deep sadness in the little town, these feelings were often shortened by the formula “ça va aller…”. In capturing the gloomy atmosphere and embroidering these images, the artist tried to heal mental wounds. “ça va aller…” was presented for the first time AKAA – Also Known As Africa 2017 in Paris, France.
In Joana’s photographical projects, the documentary meets art and vice versa. In addition, she lately introduced embroidery into the images. As attentive observer of her society, she picks up subjects of tradition and history as well as contemporary issues. Through these topics, she questions about collective and personal identity.