- há 2 horas
For a long time, photographer Robert Lohmeyer shaped the European view of Africa. During his travels, from 1907 to 1909, he photographed the German colonies -- in color, for the first time. In doing so, he laid the photographic foundations of racism.
The young photographer‘s trip to the German colonies of Togo, Cameroon, German Southwest Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now Tanzania) was taken at the height of German imperialism. In his photographs of his travels, Robert Lohmeyer generated enthusiasm for these distant lands that Germany considered its possessions.
Making use of the most up-to-date photographic equipment at the time, Lohmeyer’s project was a meticulously planned PR campaign. Its goal? A celebration of colonialism and empire.
Lohmeyer’s resulting photography books were seen by huge numbers of people. Even today, the pictures are still in circulation. Lohmeyer's photos convey the image of a "peaceful savage" in a paradisiacal landscape. A colonial idyll. Because the images are in color, they evoke a feeling of authenticity and truthfulness. War, disease, hunger and death do not appear in Lohmeyer's pictures.
Based on unpublished written sources and photographs, the documentary follows Lohmeyer's journey. It tells the story of a chapter in the history of photography. But it also tells the story of a propaganda coup. Finally, the film explores Lohmeyer’s contribution to a new kind of racism -- in color - the effects of which can still be felt today.
The young photographer‘s trip to the German colonies of Togo, Cameroon, German Southwest Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now Tanzania) was taken at the height of German imperialism. In his photographs of his travels, Robert Lohmeyer generated enthusiasm for these distant lands that Germany considered its possessions.
Making use of the most up-to-date photographic equipment at the time, Lohmeyer’s project was a meticulously planned PR campaign. Its goal? A celebration of colonialism and empire.
Lohmeyer’s resulting photography books were seen by huge numbers of people. Even today, the pictures are still in circulation. Lohmeyer's photos convey the image of a "peaceful savage" in a paradisiacal landscape. A colonial idyll. Because the images are in color, they evoke a feeling of authenticity and truthfulness. War, disease, hunger and death do not appear in Lohmeyer's pictures.
Based on unpublished written sources and photographs, the documentary follows Lohmeyer's journey. It tells the story of a chapter in the history of photography. But it also tells the story of a propaganda coup. Finally, the film explores Lohmeyer’s contribution to a new kind of racism -- in color - the effects of which can still be felt today.
Categoria
📚
AprendizadoTranscrição
00:08Here, the Atlantic Ocean meets the western coastline of Namibia.
00:13The country was once one of four German colonies in Africa,
00:16and at the beginning of the 20th century,
00:19the stage for a revolutionary development in visual documentation.
00:26It's here that the first color photographs of Africa and its people were taken.
00:35It was still a very new and sensational technique,
00:38with photos suddenly being available in color.
00:42For the viewer, a color photo feels much closer than a black and white one.
00:51Robert Lohmeier was a pioneering photochemist
00:54who created the first color portraits in Africa.
00:56In his diary, he would later recall.
00:59In connection with this debate, I was asked whether I would venture to take type images in this form.
01:05I could naturally make no promises, as it would depend not on me,
01:09but on the fellows being willing to keep still.
01:14The so-called type images, racialized photos taken with the intent of showing a German audience,
01:20African people grouped according to their ethnic background and the countries they lived in.
01:43The story began with an innovative new camera, a colorful new way of promoting German colonialism.
01:55Far-flung lands, their towns, cities, and inhabitants.
02:02Three color photography was a revolutionary development.
02:06And this was the first time it was put to use to generate popular support for Germany's colonial ventures.
02:23There was always a holiday feeling when we visited my grandparents.
02:28Grandad would say he was going to get out the heavy book.
02:30And these things really were terribly heavy.
02:33He'd put it on the table, and we'd look at the pictures page by page.
02:38Not every time.
02:39But when we had time, it was very special.
02:44And of course, he'd tell us stories, too.
02:46We were really impressed by the pictures.
02:51In March 1909, Robert Lohmeier set out on a steamship run by a Hamburg-based colonial shipping company.
02:59His destination, German Southwest Africa, today's Namibia.
03:04The German photographer compiled a private photo album documenting his travels, featuring black and white images.
03:12Among them, his arrival in Swakopmund, the main port serving the German colony.
03:20He also kept a diary, made public here for the first time.
03:25German Southwest Africa was not his first stop on the continent.
03:30But it was a disappointing one.
03:33I must confess, one cannot possibly imagine a sorrier sight.
03:38An endless sandy desert with houses, with not a single tree or shrub.
03:44Little Mrs. Henning, the attorney's wife, broke out in tears when she saw her new home.
03:49I could not think of anything more saddening than having to live here permanently, on the coast.
04:05People generally knew very little about the colonies, as hardly anyone had actually been there.
04:11And reports were pretty rare.
04:15At its peak, the population of Germans in all the colonies together was 25,000.
04:21So vanishingly small.
04:24So Robert Lohmeier was sent to Africa, where he effectively served as the PR director of Germany's colonies.
04:31Working for a Berlin publishing house, and with the backing of the German authorities, he traveled across the continent.
04:38His job was to produce color photographs showing Germans the beauty of their distant colonies.
04:49His primary focus was human subjects, who had been categorized by European anthropologists.
04:56It was the first time that Germans saw color images of African people.
05:20Photography was essentially a colonial tool and accessory.
05:23The pictures served to demonstrate supposedly scientific, hierarchical differences between people and cultures.
05:31And they also served to degrade individuals into types, based on exterior features.
05:44Biologistic ideas of race were very important for German colonial policy in particular.
05:49They were all pervasive, as seen in advertising.
05:53The imagery used was strongly influenced by the belief that the quote-unquote European race was superior to others.
06:02That white Europeans were at the top of the hierarchy.
06:09The photographs that Lohmeier delivered were precisely what his employers wanted.
06:14They showed the indigenous population of Africa as being comprised of a variety of tribes and ethnic groups,
06:21who differed in terms of appearance, character, and degree of civilization.
06:48There was the notion of the family of man, with the white man up at the top,
06:54and all other colors lower down, the Asians in the middle, and at the bottom, black people.
07:02Then on the lowest rung were the San, for example, referred to as Bushmen.
07:08There were all manner of theories intended to prove this.
07:12Theories now seem as unscientific, of course.
07:15But back then, they were considered scientific fact by anthropologists and ethnologists.
07:26This is the Lutheran Church in Windhoek, then and now.
07:34Wolfram Hartmann and Werner Hillebricht live here in Windhoek.
07:40Hartmann is an historian, born in Namibia.
07:44German-born Hillebricht moved here 30 years ago and is a former director of the National Archive.
07:50As experts of colonial history, they're familiar with Lohmeier's photos.
08:00You can make up all kinds of stories.
08:03These could be anybody, Herrero's, or just as easily, Ovambos.
08:08And the children, there's no way of saying that they're Naama children.
08:12This was probably on a farm, or Werft, a settlement where the white owners' workers lived,
08:19or the owner lived with his Herrero wife.
08:22There was often a certain degree of ethnic mixing.
08:26For good reason, due to the information imparted to the farmers.
08:33They were told to recruit people from different ethnic groups.
08:43As they supposedly didn't get on with each other, so they'd be easier to control.
08:50There were a lot of dubious myths being told about these pictures.
08:57He did quite a good job with the bastard girl.
09:02He didn't take a stereotypical shot.
09:06And she just has a pleasant appearance.
09:08But anyone could claim she's a bastard girl.
09:10She could also be a Naama woman.
09:15The texts accompanying the pictures in this book were not written to accompany the pictures.
09:21The pictures were just added in, later.
09:27It's not racist to the same degree as, say, certain postcards in circulation back then.
09:35The individual portrait shots are dignified.
09:38Which is surprising when you think about the other kinds of photos from that time.
09:47Ethnological portraits, head-on and side-on.
09:50For depicting supposed racial types.
09:53That's not really the case with Lohmeyer.
10:02The photos are considered to have artistic value.
10:08They're still published and posted today.
10:10Sometimes on websites with decidedly non-artistic agendas.
10:18There are websites that clearly exhibit a nostalgic longing for this era.
10:24And these pictures feature heavily there.
10:28At a time of growing digitalization and interest in German colonial history,
10:34Lohmeyer's photos are enjoying a renaissance.
10:36Usually in the absence of any contextual information.
10:45The pictures still have a powerful impact.
10:49Especially due to their context-free circulation online.
10:52Whether for illustrating Wikipedia entries or in postcard collections.
10:56They automatically reproduced the colonialist and racist narratives contained in the images.
11:03These photos were created within the context of unequal power structures.
11:11Robert Lohmeyer was born in Leipzig in 1879.
11:16But went to high school in Berlin.
11:18The product of a typical middle-class upbringing.
11:28He was born in Leipzig, but then saw himself as a Berliner and was very proud of his local accent.
11:35He spoke very quickly and was extremely eloquent and quick-witted.
11:44That was probably also due to his relatively small stature.
11:50He was 5'4", at most.
11:53So, he had to depend on his wit.
11:59Lohmeyer decided to embark on a scientific career.
12:03In 1902, he enrolled at the Royal Technical College in Berlin.
12:08There, legendary German photochemist Adolf Mieter was one of his lecturers.
12:13That year, Mieter presented a groundbreaking invention, the three-colour camera.
12:32You had to take three photos in quick succession.
12:36Which then probably meant four seconds.
12:38An eternity in photography.
12:40So, back then, people had to really stay still for a number of seconds.
12:46And try not to blink.
12:51And I think that's what gives these photos their static feel.
12:58Mieter's invention involved the subject being captured on three plates.
13:02Through red, green and blue filters.
13:04With the colour photo resulting from the three exposures.
13:07In 1903, Mieter demonstrated his invention to Kaiser Wilhelm II.
13:12The German monarch was thrilled.
13:19The invention of photography coincided roughly with Europe's colonial expansion.
13:24And the emergence of ethnology.
13:27With all three influencing one another.
13:30And photography was an incredibly important tool, as it were.
13:34For communicating and disseminating the colonial concept.
13:40The Hansa Hotel in Swakopmund was a hotspot for colonial high society in German Southwest Africa.
13:48Lohmeier saw his job as a patriotic one.
13:51And his academic title helped.
13:58Given the monstrous class differences at the time, I was considered acceptable in government and officers circles.
14:05Otherwise, they would have just said, that's some photographer from Germany.
14:12In Swakopmund, the colonial rulers were keen to set up a home away from home.
14:19Within a short space of time, they built a strikingly authentic replica of a small German town.
14:33Basically, they wanted to create a kind of superior Germany there.
14:38As was typical for colonial enthusiasts in the mid-19th century.
14:42But it didn't really catch on.
14:44And what they were left with instead, were raw material producers, commercial markets and showcase buildings.
14:52Instead of creating a mini-empire, the idea now was more about establishing rule and making local people work for
15:00the German Empire.
15:06Lohmeier's assignment was to show the colonies working well in resplendent color.
15:11Essentially propaganda for a German Empire along British lines.
15:22The colonial administrators were constantly citing Britain, the aim being to be its equal, owning and running large colonies and
15:32making profit from them too.
15:35India, with its size and being the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, was something they never achieved.
15:43But it was the prime example to follow.
15:50In a forward to the German colonies, Germany's leading anthropologist of the time, Gustav Fritsch, likened advances in photography to
15:59the progress brought by German colonial rulers to their African subjects.
16:03The book was a huge success.
16:06The Kaiser ordered his own personal copy.
16:09The luxury edition cost 220 Reichsmarks, almost a third of the average annual income of the time.
16:16A popular edition costing three marks 50 sold a phenomenal 60,000 copies.
16:22A bestseller.
16:27My grandfather was pro-colonial, but not in the overtly warmongering sense.
16:32He adopted the vocabulary of the time.
16:34The boys doing everything for him and carrying him through the jungle in a sedan chair.
16:39When I was a boy, I would say my grandad was like Dr. Doolittle.
16:47Important above all was having a decent nag and a dependable black orderly, which for the local chieftains, in effect
16:54may be a guest of the government.
16:56The primary difficulty, of course, was keeping the caravan together.
17:01Writing back, I occasionally administered a few blows of encouragement with the hippo hidewhip, an instrument worth its weight in
17:08gold here.
17:09Its appearance alone works wonders.
17:12Without a doubt, racism was a core element of colonialism.
17:18It was essentially an integral part of thinking in that era.
17:22The Africans were not seen as future fellow citizens, like Cameroon-born Martin de Bobe, who in 1902 became a
17:31city train conductor in Berlin.
17:33Africa was associated with untamed nature, adventure and romance.
17:38Books with Lohmeyer's photos referred to Negroes and their place in contemporary racial theory.
17:45Some examples.
17:47Each race should keep to its own, an old phrase based on manifold experience that finds further confirmation here.
17:55To this day, the Bushmen wandering errantly in the grasslands exist on the lowest conceivable level of humanity.
18:02The life of the Bushmen is indeed reminiscent of that of animals in the wild.
18:09What is conspicuous, however, is the difference in facial shape between the Bagdamara and the Ovo Herrero.
18:19Here the broad angular head of the despised Klipkafer.
18:25Then the striking narrow head of the Omo Herrero, the master with his in many cases almost semitic-like features.
18:36There was also the notion that Europeans had the right to rule over other peoples, because they were at the
18:42top of this racial hierarchy.
18:44A notion that went unchallenged.
18:46And those other peoples and societies were to work for the European man and be subordinate to him.
18:55In addition to the native individuals debased in accordance with racial theory, Lohmeier's photos also depicted the colony as a
19:03paradise, with a solid infrastructure and breathtaking landscapes.
19:14The motifs featured in Robert Lohmeier's photos spoke a very familiar visual language for people back home, in terms of
19:26their composition.
19:29The photos show landscapes and architecture, often featuring imperial infrastructure and buildings such as churches.
19:40The composition was in many cases comparable with picture postcards that people knew from Germany or other places in Europe.
19:52Shortly before Christmas, 1907, Robert Lohmeier disembarked from the steamship Edea.
19:58His destination, Lohmeier, the capital of Togo in West Africa, considered an exemplary colonial project.
20:08I dressed up in my pristine white finery and drove proudly to the governorate, a new and expansive hall construction
20:16topped with a globe like the Tietz store back home on Leipziger Straße.
20:24Coco Azamede is an expert in colonial history at the University of Lohmeier.
20:30Due to scheduling, our interview had to take place via video call.
20:34Take the example of Lohmeier.
20:39Back then, it had streets, buildings and districts that went by the German name Lohmeierstadt.
20:47Lohmeier city was exclusively European, while the native population had to live on the outskirts, in what was called Lohmeierland.
21:02They did build a couple of hospitals.
21:03But for Europeans only.
21:07As for medical treatment for the indigenous population, they were sent to shanty buildings in the vicinity of the hospital.
21:19So, all the photos taken by Lohmeier show Germans exploiting the colony for the benefit of the German Empire, and
21:28Germans in general.
21:35Togo was considered Germany's model colony, for the commercial trading companies and plantation owners who set up business there, a
21:43peaceful and lucrative prospect.
21:52The Togo colony was more about exploitation than settlement.
21:58But in German eyes, it was a model colony.
22:02Why?
22:04The work done by Togo helped to ensure that Germany no longer needed to invest economically in the colony.
22:23From an alternative perspective, my perspective too, this model colony was only beneficial for the German rulers.
22:36We suffered hardship from colonial rule, with our work only serving the power of the colonists, and to the severe
22:45detriment of people's health and their own society.
22:56This book spoke belittlingly of the Togolese.
22:59The wheel is alien to him, as is the winch, the potter's wheel, the cart, the use of working animals,
23:06or the plow.
23:07In these things, he's a thousand years behind the white man and the yellow race.
23:13Lohmeier too believed in the idea of a civilizing mission.
23:16In this world, white men held all the power, and Togolese women were reduced to possessions and sex objects.
23:27The new white man bought himself a young girl, and in the evening, the black woman, called Mami, appeared punctually
23:35on the veranda.
23:37A few days later, I, to my surprise, determined that there was likewise a black something or other offering itself
23:44outside my door.
23:46I still had no inkling that this was a customary gift for guests.
23:51Since I had absolutely no appetite for this kind of chocolate, I asked my host to refrain from such hospitality
23:57in future.
24:10Initially, having an indigenous woman as a mistress was something the white colonialists took for granted.
24:18In their eyes, it was part and parcel of their conquest.
24:22Over time, that idea was increasingly subject to stricter race laws.
24:28A white man cohabitating with an indigenous woman would be said to have gone native.
24:40Robert Lohmeier also visited Lüderitz.
24:43The second most important port in the colony was also home to a little Germany, complete with all the trappings,
24:51as can still be seen today.
25:12Shark Island near Lüderitz was the site of a concentration camp set up by German colonial troops.
25:19Over 1,000 Nama starved and froze to death here.
25:23No Lohmeier photos document these events.
25:31The Herero and Nama rebellion started in 1904.
25:35The German response was brutal and turned into a systematic genocide.
25:46Of 80,000 Herero, some 65,000 were killed, together with half of the Nama's 20,000-strong population.
26:06Today, the crime is commemorated by a memorial in Windhoek.
26:10In its day, the bloody quelling of the rebellion was also the subject of fierce debate back in Germany.
26:17There it served as a key issue in the parliamentary elections of 1907.
26:25Both of Germany's most popular political parties condemned the colonial army's actions.
26:31Nonetheless, these events went unmentioned by Lohmeier in his travel logs.
26:48Robert Lohmeier's photos presented a completely different picture.
26:55One of peaceful colonies, of safety, of vast landscapes, the occasional inhabitant, architecture and clear compositions, giving the colonies an
27:07idyllic feel.
27:12Vast landscapes, towns and villages with familiar architecture.
27:17The colonies were depicted as pleasant places to live, despite the reality that large swaths were barren wilderness.
27:26Lohmeier's photography delivered an advertising world ideal.
27:33The Lüderitz railway line connected the port town with the interior and the Namib desert.
27:40Lohmeier was among the passengers, in his own carriage.
27:44The train would stop wherever he commanded for him to take his pictures.
27:53Among his stops was Kolmanskop, a small settlement in the middle of the desert.
28:01This, until now, little-known small town, owed its fame to the discovery of diamond fields in the sand of
28:07Kolmanskop.
28:08Aside from a number of pictures in the Namib, the only point of interest here were the various stages of
28:14diamond mining.
28:16Kolmanskop was a backwater full of nouveau riche colonialists who had their bathwater delivered from South Africa in soda bottles.
28:25The diamond boom brought prosperity to the barren south of the colony.
28:32The settlers built themselves everything from ballrooms to bowling alleys.
28:40The precious stones made a select few wealthy.
28:44But the colonial settlements were a largely subsidized undertaking.
28:54Ultimately, the German Empire invested more money from tax revenues in the colonies than it ever earned from them.
29:02Although certain companies were able to become extremely wealthy.
29:07With phosphate trading from the Pacific, the diamond trade, and the railways, for example.
29:17So there were companies, and their shareholders, for whom colonial investments were extremely lucrative.
29:27In 1909, Robert Lohmeier arrived in German East Africa, the pearl of Germany's colonies.
29:34Mount Kilimanjaro, celebrated at the time as Germany's highest mountain, was among the highlights on visitors' travel itinerary.
29:42An unforgettable sight.
29:45Africa and snow.
29:46A combination so strange that the missionary who first reported it to Europe 30 years ago was declared insane.
29:57The most picturesque black people lived here, the so-called Maasai.
30:02Black would actually be the wrong word.
30:05They were dark brown, and had wonderful warrior jewelry.
30:08I was most glad to be able to record this peculiar tribe too.
30:13The Maasai were for Lohmeier the epitome of the noble African, or as described in the book, the aristocratic caste
30:21of the native population.
30:22The Askari, a group of mercenaries from various parts of Africa, likewise enjoyed a reputation as excellent soldiers and dependable
30:32allies.
30:33Some would fight for Germany in the First World War.
30:38In what is now Tanzania, the dream of realizing a British-style empire seemed possible.
30:44The German regime was competing directly, and in its own eyes, on equal footing with its European rival in neighboring
30:52Kenya.
31:00It was a very prevalent idea in the run-up to the First World War.
31:04The German colonial company managed to win over a lot of people with its endless promotional campaigns and events.
31:17And in the years before the war, this notion of rivalry became hugely important, together with the idea of being
31:26a global power.
31:34Nationalistic propaganda played a major role among the competing colonial powers.
31:40Racist stereotypes were frequently deployed, to demean both the colonized and competing European nations.
31:55The German colonialism was a satirical magazine that compared the various European colonial powers, in very vivid terms.
32:03For instance, German colonialism was portrayed as peaceful, next to the bloodthirsty Belgians, or the capitalist, exploitative imperialism of the
32:12British.
32:13While the interracial sexual mixing in Portuguese colonialism was also frowned upon.
32:22For Germany, these comparisons were important.
32:34The first world war in Europe killed millions and saw the collapse of the monarchy in Germany.
32:43With it ended Germany's aspirations to a global empire.
32:50Former German colonies were taken over by France and Britain.
32:56Back home there was widespread shame over the presence of black occupying troops on German soil.
33:03Especially the French infantry group that had fought in the trenches on the Western Front.
33:16It was a deliberate humiliation, and met with fierce opposition.
33:22Including organized protests by associations in Britain and the US.
33:29The idea of a white population being guarded and commanded by black men was unprecedented.
33:38And considered an absolute reversal of the natural order.
33:45Even left-wing satirical publications in Germany, such as Kladradatsch and Symblizismus, join the propaganda war against the so-called
33:54black infamy.
33:56Fueling racist notions of the murderous, sexually violent black men.
34:01Racist colonialist cliches were omnipresent in both political discourse and popular culture.
34:14With the loss of the colonies after the First World War, the big debate in the Weimar Republic centered on
34:21colonial revisionism.
34:22If you want to say that, it was the worst.
34:49If you want to say that, it was the worst.
34:51The German army of the British nationalists, the German army of the Nazis, the German army of the Nazis.
34:52Yet again instrumentalizing the photos.
34:59There are a lot of people today in Germany.
35:03Some scientists, but primarily non-academics.
35:06Who insist that antisemitism was different from the racism shown towards Africans, for example.
35:11But I believe that these two phenomena were very closely connected.
35:17The defining ideology of the Nazi movement was anti-Semitism, and of course there is
35:24an intrinsic link to the racism against black people.
35:30Thirty years after Lohmeier's first trip, his photos were featured again in the 1937
35:37book German Africa and its Future.
35:39Four years later, another book followed, Our Wonderful Old Colonies.
35:44The images had been incorporated into Nazi ideology.
35:52The colonial enthusiasts were counting on the Nazis.
35:56They hoped that the new Hitler regime would enable the re-establishment of the colonial
36:00empire.
36:07The Nazi era saw a resurgence of colonial era images.
36:11There were re-issues of old magazines and illustrated books.
36:15The colonial era pictures enjoyed a renaissance, with the Nazis happy to make use of that imagery
36:22and its inherently racist narrative.
36:30The photos were the same.
36:32Some of the accompanying texts were revised, with unmistakable references to the ignominy
36:38of the First World War defeat.
36:40The Nazi publishers deployed racist stereotypes to appeal to readers longing for the old colonies.
36:50They were keen to integrate all the colonial enthusiasts into Nazi ideology.
36:57There were also plans for a restoration of the overseas empire, which were only abandoned
37:02in 1942.
37:08When the Second World War broke out, Robert Lohmeier was 60, married, with two sons, and
37:14with his own company.
37:19He would never return to the former colonial territories, but memories and mementos of Africa
37:26remained.
37:35That leopard hide accompanied my entire childhood.
37:39The apartment was teeming with animals, chameleons, aquariums, and apparently even a monkey acquired
37:45by my grandmother.
37:46Although it had to be removed for being too wild.
37:49Plus, reptiles and what have you, a real menagerie.
37:58The apartment was hit by a bomb, while they were in the basement.
38:04My grandparents survived uninjured, but they emerged to face a pile of rubble that remained
38:10of their home.
38:15A cabinet of curiosities and memories of Africa.
38:20He was devastated.
38:29After the Second World War, Robert Lohmeier founded a company specializing in forensics.
38:35He'd previously run an agency that marketed photos of the German colonies, including his
38:42own black and white shots.
38:44His pioneering color photos were no longer a source of income, as the rights belonged to
38:49the publisher.
38:56I remember how at my grandparents' place, there were still things lying around that they'd salvaged
39:01from the rubble.
39:03And he'd always have a story about where he'd gotten something.
39:06Right up until the 1950s.
39:11Robert Lohmeier refrained from further public comment, starting but never finishing his autobiography.
39:25Of almost everything I've seen and experienced, there was a recurring dream from my childhood
39:31and youth that I seemingly forgot.
39:36Until the moment came when I was able to enact it.
39:52By the time Lohmeier died in 1959, he was a largely forgotten figure.
39:58But the visual imagery he helped to create lives on, creating a picture of Africa, whose legacy
40:05is ongoing to this day.
40:14This old colonial imagery is still with us today.
40:18You can find it everywhere, from advertising to musicals.
40:22It has little to do with reality in Africa, but it does manufacture nice-looking pictures.
40:28It conveys adventure and exoticism.
40:35Current debates over racism and cultural appropriation offer an opportunity to reassess historically important
40:43photos, like those taken by Robert Lohmeier.
40:50A responsible approach to the pictures would be firstly a critical reappraisal, i.e. seeing
40:58and marking them within their context.
41:01Even if we as a museum exhibit an image with an accompanying text, we're still reproducing
41:08the visual content.
41:10One possible approach would be to counter these visual narratives with other images by creating
41:15counter images, as it were, to these colonial impressions.
41:22The first color photos of Africa are now over a century old.
41:27They will always represent a milestone in the history of photography, and Robert Lohmeier, a pioneer in this field.
41:34But today, the circumstances of these photos' creation and their use must be contextualized
41:41and commented upon, if they are to be shown responsibly.
41:45They are important witnesses to German colonial history, the imperialist era, and the legacy
41:51of racist ideology.
42:23The American Pronunciation Guide Presents It to the World
Comentários