Nyani Quarmyne’s photos catch attention in Mali
Pictures by Nyani Quarmyne, the Ghanaian award-winning photographer, that reveal hitherto untold stories of a refugee camp in southern Mauritania, is on display at the ongoing African Photography Biennial in the Malian capital, Bamako.
Advertisement
The photographs were taken at Mbera, a dry and dusty landscape of the Western Sahara where people who fled the Malian crisis of 2013 largely inhabit. The location has been portrayed as harsh, squalid and derelict by filmmakers and the news media, leading to an extremely negative reputation.
Nevertheless, Quarmyne’s photographic account, which was documented in 2013, reveals experiences and activities in the camp from a lively and perplexing perspective.
Images of day-to-day activities captured by the photographer include tea sharing, babies being welcomed, breastfeeding women in colourful clothes, children playing football, mothers preparing their homes and relaxing elderly men which all reveal some sense of calm, rationality and orderliness.
Quarmyne ensures a constant presence of sand, which inevitably reminds us of the location, which is obviously in the middle of the Sahara desert. Indeed, this is clearly indicated in a photo with sand inundating the body of a man taking a nap.
With a dramatic use of light, the photographer also touches on a clash of cultures and attempts to adjust to life in a desert as inhabitants are compelled to live a completely different life in a distant and remote terrain.
Undeniably, Quarmyne’s lenses provide us with an alternative view of Mbera - a view that unveils hope, optimism and a clear message of how life can be useful in the most difficult situations - notwithstanding an uncertain future.
A “hybridised” African, Quarmyne was born in India to a Ghanaian father and a Filipino mother and has lived in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Canada, Australia, Ghana and the United States.
Currently based in Accra, he has undertaken assignments internationally for a wide variety of NGOs, corporate and editorial clients.
His current personal interests include the living conditions and care arrangements for the mentally ill, the expression of faith in all its forms and the Sahel region.
His work has been exhibited in Australia, across Europe and North America and other parts of West Africa.
He is a past winner of the European Union Prize at the “Rencontres de Bamako”, a Pan-African Photography Biennial and a finalist for the Australian National Photographic Portrait Prize.
Dubbed, ‘Telling Time’, the ongoing biennial, which ends on Thursday, December 31, was organised by Mali’s Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the French Embassy in Bamako and the Institut Français in Mali.