The in-between: photography, the city, and Bouna Medoune Seye's Joe's Yard

The in-between: photography, the city, and Bouna Medoune Seye's Joe's Yard Public Deposited

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Creator

Carlisle, Jennie K.
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Art and Art History

Abstract

In 1995 Senegalese artist Bouna Medoune Seye produced his Joe's Yard photographic series in the courtyard of Issa Samb, also known as Joe Ouakam, a multimedia artist involved in the improvisational artistic laboratory, Laboratoire Agit-Art. By conveying a sense of everyday urban creativity, these images simultaneously participate in a dialogue about daily life in the city of Dakar and position Seye in relationship to the aesthetic and political interests of Issa Samb and Laboratoire Agit-Art. Though the images record Joe's yard in a literal manner, they are not merely documentary. In this essay, I argue that their function is more complex than a simple inventory of space and that they convey an interest in promoting Seye's photographic practice as an art form, even as his images take advantage of documentary photography's affinity for recording the visible world by turning our attention towards the details of urban life.

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