Rochester Public Library
News Release
(September 24, 2009) - The Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County will host “Visual Griots of Mali” an exhibit of photography by Malian youth which opens today through December 3, 2009 at 115 South Ave., Rochester NY, Lower Level Gallery.
A new, eye-opening image of Africa will be on display at the Central Library of Rochester & Monroe County, thanks to a group of sixth grade Malian students from two small villages 500 miles southwest of Timbuktu. The exhibit is presented by the Bamako-Rochester Sister Cities Committee.
Photographs from Visual Griots were previously shown in Mali’s capital, Bamako, at the 5th annual African Photography Encounters Festival, at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C., and at the Central Library, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Nearly 50 images were created through the Mali project, portraying the day-to-day delights and duties of village life. During the workshop, the Malian youth in the program took inspiration from the role of the griot (gree-oh), a traditional West African storyteller who carries on a family’s or village’s oral traditions.
“This is a gift,” said Shawn Davis, who directs the project. “This exhibit gives us the opportunity to see Africa through the eyes of African children. The story of Africa is too seldom told by Africans.”
Visual Griots, a project of the Academy for Educational Development, sent a team of Malian and U.S. photographers into the villages of Damy and Kouara to put cameras in the hand of youth, empower them to document their lives, and help them better connect with their communities and the world. Promoting community cultural development and mutual understanding are the primary goals of the program.
“We must stop thinking that everything must arrive on a wave from the West,” said Alioune Bâ, the official photographer for the National Museum of Mali, and a Visual Griots instructor. “We are capable of creating an image of our own that can ride its own wave in the opposite direction.”
For more information call Inge Munnings at 428-8305.
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Communications Office
115 South Avenue, Rochester, NY 14604-1896
585-428-8051 ♦ (F) 585-428-8306 ♦ ssnow@libraryweb.org
CONTACT: Sally Snow
Assistant Director, MCLS
428-8051