Africa, by Africans

A remarkable new photography show reveals a liberated view of the continent

- Steve Rose

At first glance, Congolese photographer Kiripi Katembo's images look like playful sci-fi montages: shaky Kinshasa streetscapes in which giant rocks seem to be falling out of the sky, like a lo-fi apocalypse. On closer inspection there are no special effects: the images are actually reflections in puddles, turned upside down, each capturing a fleeting moment of street life in a shimmering, suitably surreal fashion that's arguably closer to the sensory experience of being there. It's a testament to ingenuity: Katembo, who tragically died of malaria aged 36 in 2015, had little access to professional photography equipment, so he found his own way of using the camera. There was also an element of necessity. Most Congolese people do not want to have their picture taken, he once explained, so he had to seek less obtrusive ways of documenting his community.

Many Africans would have good reason to be suspicious of a camera pointed at them. The histories of photography and colonialism go hand in hand, especially in Africa. As Zimbabwean novelist Yvonne Vera once wrote: "In Africa ... the camera arrives as part of the colonial paraphernalia, together with the gun and the bible." Even as European powers were carving up the continent in the 19th century, explorers were returning the first photographic images of Africa, which inevitably reflected the mindset of the people creating them: "untamed" landscapes filtered through fantasies of "the dark continent"; quasi-scientific portraits of "subjects", or even "specimens".