Ebifananyi VII

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Staying Alive, documenting the Uganda Cancer Institute

Andrea Stultiens

Book

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Image: Andrea Stultiens. Photo: Ben Krewinkel

Image: Andrea Stultiens. Photo: Ben Krewinkel

In a place where death is often around the corner, photographs freeze time, but also could be said to keep pasts and the people living in them alive.

Ebifananyi is the title of a series of eight publications by Andrea Stultiens and co-published by Paradox and History In Progress Uganda (HIPUganda). The noun Ebifananyi is derived from the verb Kufanana, and means to be similar to. It’s the Luganda word for photographs, but also for drawings and paintings, placing emphasis on their qualities as likenesses. Each book is centred around one Ugandan photo collection, exploring its cultural context. The series present the results of engagements with photo collections by the Andrea Stultiens, the owners of the collections and (mainly) Ugandan artists, leading to in compelling stories and beautifully designed and printed books.

Book five, six and seven again form a trilogy. This time dealing with photographic pictures and their roles in documentation, education and the generation of knowledge in colonial and post-colonial Uganda. The seventh book Staying Alive considers photographs that were a tool in medical practices and research, and the documentation of the history of the Uganda Cancer Institute. In a place where death is often around the corner, photographs freeze time, but also could be said to keep pasts and the people living in them alive.

In 2011 Andrea Stultiens and artist Canon Griffin initiated the platform HIPUganda. They aim at digitalizing photographic material in Uganda to prevent the loss of historical collections, which are often threatened by challenging conservational circumstances. Furthermore, they aim to bring the collections to live by connecting their content to audiences. Since both founders are also image-makers and not archivists or conservators, they developed visual strategies to engage with the digitized material. These collections are dead until their content is handled by people who connect it with present day realities. The book series Ebifananyi is the first out of several projects that encourages engagement with the material that HIPUganda manages to disclose.

www.HIPUganda.org

Maker(s):
Andrea Stultiens

Theme(s):
Cultural History

Image: Ben Krewinkel

Image: Andrea Stultiens. Photo: Ben Krewinkel

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