Handling Objects and Discussion activity

This activity looks at a display of photographs taken by the Malian photographer Seydou Keita between 1949 and 1963. The activity can be adapted to suit the different experiences and interests of your group. Keita’s photographs can stimulate a wide-ranging debate about issues of artistic ownership and cultural borrowing; it will also be a good introduction to thinking about portraiture, and photography’s social purpose, as well as inspiring looking at different non-European cultures. When working with your group in this display, you will need to be prepared for the complex questions it stimulates, and assess what is appropriate for your group.

You will need to prepare some materials to bring with you to the gallery. Try to find:

Small pieces of patterned African fabrics, and other fabrics with bold prints and woven patterns
Printing stamps and stencils of different motifs and shapes
Toy cars and motorbikes, doll’s house accessories (like radios and TVs, record players)
Toy globe

Activity

Before you go into the room, divide your group to work in pairs or groups of 3 or 4. Give each group one of the items you have brought, and ask them to look around the display for 5-10 minutes. Can they make any links between the object they’ve been given and the photos on display? Make sure they look at the glass display boxes of photographs as well as the large prints on the walls.

Is anyone in the group of Malian or West African heritage? Did they recognise anything in particular about the display?

Continue the discussion with other questions:

Did anyone notice repeats in the photos? (The same outfit on different people, or the same pose in different photographs). You can mention Keita’s ‘dressing up’ box of outfits and props – people could borrow items to wear or hold in their photographs. The African textiles you’ve brought may also have repeated motifs – what about the fabrics shown in the photographs? Did anyone notice the same photos repeated on the wall and in the display cases?

What are the differences between the large prints on the walls, and the small photos in the display cases? Which are new, and which are old?

Has anyone got photos of friends and family on their walls at home, or in photo albums? Are they similar in size to the big prints in the gallery, or the small ones in the glass boxes?

Thinking about portraiture and the photos people have at home, are they snapshots or posed portraits?

Ask the group if they’ve had their photo taken by a professional photographer. Was it at school perhaps, or a special occasion like a wedding, or as a way of capturing the family all together? What happens when you pose for a ‘proper’ photograph – what do you do, and what does the photographer say? Does anyone feel shy having their photo taken, or is it fun, a chance to dress up and pose? Who is ‘in charge’ of the photo? Which people in Keita’s photographs look like they’re having fun – and who looks a bit unsure?

Why do you think the people in Keita’s photographs went to have their photos taken – are there any clues in the photos? (Remember the clues could be misleading – a lot of the items in the photos are borrowed.) Do you think they expected lots of people to see the results, or just friends and family? What do you imagine they would think if they saw their photos on display at Tate Modern?

This display of photographs is on a short-term loan to Tate Modern from the Contemporary African Art Collection of Jean Pigozzi, an Italian art collector.

Some questions which might come up:

When we’re looking at portraits, who do you think should own the final picture – the person in the photograph, the photographer, or the person who buys it?

Some people argue that art collectors who buy non-Western art, like art from Africa, are exploiting the artists, and the communities where they come from. On the other hand, it can be argued that collectors bring the artists’ work to a wider audience, and help raise awareness of non-Western cultures and history. What do you think?

Other artworks to look at in relation to this activity.

The room ‘Realisms’ in Poetry and Dream on Level 3 has a display of early 20th Century portrait paintings and sculptures. Your group might want to continue thinking about portraiture, asking the same questions about dressing up and posing for a picture, or how and why artists try to show more than their subjects’ physical appearance when they work on portraits.

Follow up work

Thinking about portrait photography – perhaps people would like to collect together and show any portrait photos they have at home. They can share memories of the day the photo was taken, or stories about the people in the photographs. Consider the differences between different sorts of photographs – new, old, formal, snapshots, kept in an album, or a shoebox, or displayed on the wall. Your group could try drawing portrait photos – working in pairs, the ‘sitter’ describes their favourite outfit, a precious object, how they’d like to pose, while the ‘photographer’ tries to make a drawing that includes those elements. After swapping roles, you could put up a display of the results.

Carry out further research on Bamako, in Mali (where Seydou Keita’s studio was). What was going on in Mali at the time the photographer was working there (the late 1940s to the mid 1960s), and what is the city like today?

Look at the Pigozzi Collection website, at: www.caacart.com, at the other artists represented there, and read Jean Pigozzi’s account of how he became interested in African art. Do some other research on this area of discussion – a local library may help with your search, or you could use the internet to find critical accounts of art collecting.