MEDIA CONTACTS:
Jennifer Bajorek, Resolution (NYC)
Erin Haney, Resolution (DC)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 4, 2014
Africa’s Threatened Photographic Heritage Rallies International Experts 22-‐25 April 2014, Benin
(West Africa)
New York, Washington, and Porto-‐Novo, Benin… Museum and art-‐world professionals from 10
countries will meet in Porto-‐Novo, Benin, for the Préservation du Patrimoine Photographique
Africain (3PA): West African Image Lab, a four-‐day workshop to address at-‐risk photography
collections in Africa, endangered through a lack of preservation resources, environmental hazards,
and increasing theft and resale of valuable prints and negatives outside Africa.
Organized by Resolution, an NGO committed to developing on-‐the-‐ground solutions in local
photography collections, and an international team of conservators, the workshop, 22-‐25 April
2014, will be the first to address at-‐risk collections in Africa.
“Our aim is to keep these vital visual histories alive and accessible to present and future
generations. With the arts sector growing, it makes sense to work and to network regionally and
cross-‐regionally in Africa,” says Erin Haney, co-‐founder and co-‐director of Resolution.
According to Resolution, emphasis on local solutions is crucial in an economically disadvantaged
region where, historically, cultural heritage has been exploited by international actors with
little or no benefit to local people. 3PA’s regional focus will allow participants to tackle
longstanding and newer obstacles to collaboration, including linguistic, economic, and digital
divides.
“There is extraordinary demand, in Africa as globally, for innovative approaches to digitizing
20th-‐century photographs. At the same time, digital platforms can expand public access to
collections in Africa and be responsive to African tech environments,” says Jennifer Bajorek, co-‐
founder and co-‐director of Resolution.
3PA: West African Image Lab will bring together museum and archive professionals, researchers,
curators, photographers, and arts activists representing photography collections in both Anglophone
and Francophone Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, and
Zimbabwe. Instructors and speakers include Fatima Fall, Centre de Recherches et de Documentation du
Sénégal (CRDS); Debra Hess Norris, University of Delaware Department of Art Conservation; Nora
Kennedy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bertrand Lavédrine, Centre de Recherche sur la
Conservation des Collections, France; Franck Ogou and Fallo Baba Keïta, École du Patrimoine
Africain, Benin. Workshop sessions will offer technical training in preservation, strategies for
designing public programs, and professional networking opportunities. Participants will share
knowledge regarding design of exhibitions, publications, and educational initiatives; digitization
protocols; and digital platforms.
About Resolution
Resolution is a non-‐profit organization dedicated to photography and photography collections in
Africa. We work to preserve vibrant and vitally important photography collections for future
generations, and we create innovative programming with the aim of dramatically expanding public and
community access to African photographic heritage in the present.
https://www.nyfa.org/ArtistDirectory/ShowProject/5f403dcb-‐8bd3-‐46ee-‐9bfe-‐a434900d1233
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