STUDIO PHOTO
A l’image du photographe ambulant, le studio photo se déplace. Mais plutôt que de s’inviter dans les intérieurs, il s’installe dans l’espace public, le salon de la cité. Il tire le portrait des habitants à la demande et leur propose par la suite un portrait “légendé” d’un mot extrait de devises nationales (Etat, travail, justice, liberté...). L’acte photographique, très polémique à Kinshasa, déplace ici les barrières de la méfiance pour proposer une mémoire personnelle tout en questionnant son inscription dans les rouages de la société.

PHOTO STUDIO
Modeled on the practice of itinerant photographers, present in most neighbourhoods of Kinshasa, this photo studio moved around. Instead of inviting itself into people’s living rooms, however, a common approach in this particular business, the studio temporarily installed itself in public spaces – in the city’s living room, that is: where its dwellers gather to comment on the state of the state. On demand the studio’s personnel took pictures of people who wished to be photographed and then offered a follow-up portrait with "caption", a word drawn from popular national mottos (“State”, “Work”, “Justice”, “Liberty”...) In a country still violently scarred by the colonial and Mobutu regimes, both of which used photography to nefarious ends, taking pictures remains a highly charged practice in Kinshasa. The photo studio project sought to shift the boundaries of suspicion surrounding the photographic act by focusing on the desire of individual sitters to create personal memories for themselves, while simultaneously questioning the impact of social norms on practices of representation.