Cultures and Borders

Cultures and borders have been a large part of art for centuries. This has been in the form of physical pieces which look a specific way to represent a culture as well as pieces which have are contextually based on cultures.

Samuel Fosso

Samuel Fosso is a photographer from Cameroon who has mainly worked in the Central African Republic on projects based on his culture within portraiture. He often comments on the history of Africa and works himslef into most of his work. His work represents his country and the style in it. I really admire his work as you can see how much effort he puts into each shot to get it just right for the cultural influence.

This shot to the left is definitely my favourite as it's so colourful and dynamic. The different patterns are something which a large amount of people are familiar with within the African culture. I like how he captioned the piece - 'I am an African chief, in a western chair with a leopard-skin cover, and a bouquet of sunflowers. I am all the African chiefs who have sold their continent tp the white men. I am saying: we had our own systems, our own rulers, before you came. It's about the history of the white man and the black man in Africa. Because they may try to cover it up these days, you know, but underneath it's still the same.' I really love this as it's saw raw and bold. He uses short simple sentences to describe such a unique piece. The reasoning behind this piece was to send pictures to his mother in Nigeria to let her know he was doing fine and getting on well.

Brandon Stanton

Brandon Stanton is a photographer based in America (more

particularly New York) who is known for being the founder of Humans of New York which is an online phenomenon with over 16 million likes. It was also a number 1 selling book in 2015. The project was based on the people of New York, it documented the diveristy within the city and had captions, stories and directly from the people he would photograph on the street. The project included pieces which were deep, emotional and insightful as well as humorous and interesting. I really like the piece on the left as it is a very lovely, dynamic portrait which has come together with the caption. It enhances the reality of a lot of people and it points out upbringings which are different to ours.