Alter Gogo by Andrew Esiebo Features at the Photoquai in Paris 2011

Nigeria Tue 06-09-2011

Alter Gogo by Andrew Esiebo Features at the Photoquai in Paris 2011
By a Correspondent

Alter Gogo is a diptych portrait series featuring grandmothers who play football with the Gogo Getters Football Club in Orange Farm, a large township in South Africa. For them, playing the football has become a passport to a better life, giving the women social relevance in their community, as well as better health.

A different image of African women. Grandmothers playing football

Playing football is their solution to many social and physiological problems like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and alcohol addiction. The series will feature at The Photoquai, 2011 from Tuesday 13th September 2011 to Friday 11th November 2011.

Alter Gogo also offers an alternative image of African women. Quite often in the mainstream imagination, African women are located in the sphere of "tradition". They are presented - if at all - as victims of oppression, who have been forced to submit to tribal customs, with no authority, freedom or conception of self.

Women with sad faces often complement the ever-pervasive images of Africa as a continent of famine, poverty and violence. Alter Gogo challenges all of these stereotypes as well the role attributed to women in their old age.

The grandmothers’ regalia, their proud postures on the soccer field along with the charm of their intimate spaces and loves create a powerful socio-cultural scenario in which soccer is the means and expression of a new gender and generation identity. To see the full series click here.

Alter-gogo-003

Proud soccer player and grandmother.

About Photoquai

Created in 2007 by The Musée du Quai Branly and dedicated to non-Western photography, the 3rd edition of The Photoquai biennial exhibition of world images takes place on the quays of The Seine alongside the Musée du Quai Branly, extending for the first time into the museum garden.

This third edition of Photoquai presents nearly 400 works by 46 contemporary photographers from 29 countries: South Africa, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Togo, Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iraq, Belarus, Russia, China, South Korea, India, Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Colombia and Brazil.

"Photoquai 2011 is a voyage through the clamour of the world, stimulated by photographers' perceptions of the state of their societies and of cultures other than their own. For us, they act as watchmen, guards, preventing us from falling asleep." Françoise Huguier - Photoquai 2011.

Alter Gogo, at The Photoquai, 2011 from Tuesday 13th September 2011 to Friday 11th November 2011.

On the quays, opposite the museum: Free access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
In the garden: Free access during museum opening hours

Posted By: Allan Kapten

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