Artists & Team
Aboubacar Traore (Mali)
Aboubacar Traore est né en 1982 à Kadiolo dans la région de Sikasso au Mali. Sa première formation était basé sur le transit douanier, mais dès le lycée, il s’est intéressé à la photographie. Au fil du temps, sa passion pour ce domaine s’est intensifiée et il s’est finalement inscrit au Centre de Formation en Photographie à Bamako en mars 2004. Entre 2010 et 2016 Aboubacar Traore a été le responsable technique du laboratoire numérique du centre, en plus il a travaillé comme enseignant en photographie conceptuelle. En 2015, il a reçu le prix de Jeune Photographe Francophone des Rencontres de Bamako – Biennale Africaine de la Photographie pour sa série Inchallah. Il a participé à plusieurs expositions telles que Dak’Art à Dakar (2016), Phot’Art – Inter Biennale Photographique du Mali (2018) et Trésors de l’islam en Afrique à l’Institut du Monde Arabe à Paris (2017) et à Rabat (2019).
Noël Minoungou (Burkina Faso)
Auteur, metteur en scène et comédien, né de père burkinabè et de mère ivoirienne, Noël Minoungou a rejoint le Carrefour International de Théâtre de Ouagadougou (CITO) en 2007.
En tant que comédien, il a joué sous la direction de nombreux metteurs en scène burkinabè et internationaux, entre autres Ildevert Méda, Prosper Kompaoré, Alougbine Dine, Dieudonné Niangouna, Paul Zoungrana, Lucas Fusi et Roger Nidegger. On retrouve Noël Minoungou au cinéma, dans les séries Du jour au lendemain, Eh les hommes ! Eh les femmes! et Ouaga Love. Il a récemment porté le rôle principal dans le long métrage La forêt de Niolo qui a obtenu l’étalon du meilleur scénario au FESPACO 2017. En 2014, Noël remporte Le Lompolo 2014 du meilleur artiste comédien de l’année au Burkina Faso.
Noël Minoungou a écrit et mis en scène l’ensemble des spectacles de la Compagnie Le Ruminant.
Ses textes, crus et décalés, transportent dans des univers atypiques qui renvoient à un engagement politique fort. Dans un rythme inhabituel et avec une utilisation sans complexe du langage, les textes de Minoungou proposent toujours un angle de réflexion original. Ses mises en scène, dynamiques et touchant parfois le registre de l’absurde, sont aujourd’hui incontournables dans le théâtre burkinabè contemporain.
Sarah Waiswa (Uganda & Kenya)
Sarah Waiswa is a Ugandan photographer, living and working between Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya. Sarah has a B.A in Sociology from Berea College, USA and a MSc in Industrial and Organisational Psychology from Eastern Kentucky University, USA. She was a second year fellow at the Goethe Institut’s Photographers Master Class (Nairobi, Kenya 2017 and Johannesburg, South Africa 2018.) In 2015, she was awarded first place in the story and creative categories in the Uganda Press Photo Awards and second place in the Daily Life and portrait categories. In 2016 she was awarded the Discovery Award in Arles, France and in 2017 she was awarded the Gerald Kraak Award in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2018, she was named a Canon Brand Ambassador and was selected for the World Press Photo 6×6 Africa Program.
A storyteller, Sarah’s work focuses on identity (particularly New African Identity) and explores themes surrounding isolation and belonging. From the persecution of people with Albinism, to children practicing ballet in Kibera. In more recent work, in the long-term project Kimbanguism, Sarah explores the Kimbanguist faith as an afro Christian movement but one rooted in resistance against a colonial regime that imprisoned their black messiah for 30 years. Her works often appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse.
Her work has been exhibited around the world, most recently at the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam and also part of the group show African Mētrópolis. An Imaginary city at the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome.
Freddy Sabimbona (Burundi)
Freddy Sabimbona est un acteur, metteur en scène, auteur et directeur artistique du Festival Buja sans Tabou à Bujumbura. En 2006 il a créé son propre groupe de théâtre, la Troupe Lampyre. Freddy s’est illustré dans plusieurs comédies de Patrice Faye comme Les Fusillés (2004), L’ Etrangleur de Kiriri (2006) et Le retour du jeune homme responsable qui s’abstient (2008). En 2009, Freddy offre à sa troupe deux courtes pièces: Quitte ou double sur l’avenir bouché de ses jeunes contemporains dans une société burundaise figée et Chérie, ce n’est pas ce que tu crois sur les affaires de la jalousie. Comme acteur Freddy a joué dans deux courts-métrages, Le sixième commandement (2012) de Francine Niyonsaba et Welcome Home (2013) de Joseph Ndayisenga. Pour ce dernier il a reçu le prix de la meilleure interprétation masculine au festival international et de l’audio-visuel au Burundi (Festicab).
Déchirement de Antoine Kaburahe l’une des créations de la Troupe Lampyre a pu être diffusée dans pas mal de pays d’Afrique de l’Est à savoir la RDC, l’Ethiopie, l’Ouganda et le Rwanda et a pu lui permettre d’intégrer Récréâtrales Elan au Burkina Faso où il eut l’occasion de mettre en scène Les Sans… de Ali Kiswensida Ouedraogo qui sera en tournée durant tout le mois d’octobre 2019 en Belgique et en France notamment durant le festival Sens interdit. Il vient récemment de mettre en scène deux pièces de Gianina Carbunariu à savoir Kebab et Stop the tempo.
Lebohang Kganye (South Africa)
Lebohang Kganye is an artist living and working in Johannesburg. She received her introduction to photography at the Market Photo Workshop, in Johannesburg in 2009 and completed the Advanced Photography Programme in 2011. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Johannesburg and is currently doing her Masters in Fine Arts at the Witwatersrand University. Lebohang forms a new generation of contemporary South African photographers, although primarily a photographer, Lebohang’s photography often incorporates her interest in sculpture and performance.
Over the past seven years she has participated in photography masterclasses and group exhibitions locally and internationally. Lebohang was the recipient of the Tierney Fellowship Award in 2012, leading to her solo exhibition Ke Lefa Laka. She created an animation from the series, which was launched on Mandela Day 2014 in Scotland, entitled Pied Piper’s Voyage. She was also awarded the Jury Prize at the Bamako Encounters – African Biennale of Photography in 2015 and was the recipient of the CAP Prize 2016 in Basel. Lebohang recently received the coveted award for the Sasol New Signatures Competition 2017, leading to a solo show in 2018. Lebohang’s work forms part of several private and public collections, most notably the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pennsylvania and the Walther Collection in Ulm.
Thokozani Kapiri (Malawi)
Thokozani Kapiri is a Malawian theatre director working with Migrant Arts. From 2013 till 2018 he completed his MA degree in Theater Directing at the Department of Film and Performing Arts Studies, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland. Currently he is applying for PhD programs in the field of Art, Culture and Media Studies in various German and South African Universities.
Thokozani’s theatre work involves periodically working outside Malawi through several international artistic collaborations in different countries such as South Africa, the UK, Norway, Ireland, Austria, and Germany. His work in relation to Europe focuses on racial representation and migration. In Africa he is more into the questions of how live performance forms are coping with the influx of digi-tech art. Staging Times offers him another platform to artistically explore such questions.
Clemes Bechtel (Germany)
Clemens Bechtel is a free-lancing drama director and mostly known for his documentary performances. He directed in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Palestine, Burundi, Mali and Malawi.
His play Staats-Sicherheiten at Hans Otto Theater Potsdam, in which 15 former detainees report about their time in the prisons of the Stasi in GDR, was awarded with the Friedrich-Luft-Preis in 2009. Clemens also worked for Oper Köln, Theater Freiburg, Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Schauspielhaus Graz, Staatsschauspiel Dresden and many other theatres in Germany and abroad. In 2013 he was the artistic director of the global theatre network Hunger for Trade at Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg. In 2015 he continued working on global theatre cooperations and founded and directed the Human Trade Network, which brought theatre groups from Burkina Faso, India, Romania and Germany together to research and develop performances about human trafficking.
In 2017 Clemens realized together with Noemi Steuer and the University of Basel, Switzerland the exhibition Was Werden Wird about youth in West Africa. This work was shown at Museum der Kulturen in Basel and at the Iwalewa House in Bayreuth.
Franziska Jenni (Switzerland)
Franziska Jenni (MA) worked for several years as senior curator for the African department of the Museum der Kulturen Basel. Currently she is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel, where she is writing a thesis on young photographers in Bamako (Mali) and their aesthetic articulations in relation to their social, political, economic and cultural context.
Franziska is in charge of the realisation of an exhibition accompanying this project, which will be shown at several locations. Up to now she curated Suspended – On the Lightness of Stone in close collaboration with the artist Justin Fiske (at the Museum der Kulturen Basel, 2012), StrawGold – Cultural Transformation Rendered Visible (at the Museum der Kulturen Basel, 2014-2020) as well as several exhibitions in collaboration with Lassane Igo Diarra (at the Galerie Medina, Bamako 2015-2017).
Benjamin Füglister (Switzerland)
Benjamin Füglister is an artist and cultural entrepreneur born in Switzerland in 1978. He has lived in Berlin, Germany, ever since completing his studies at the Basel College of Art in Switzerland, and at the Utrecht College of Art in the Netherlands. In his artistic practice he questions social conventions and explores their visual transformations. His particular interest is photography as a medium for visualizing the shifts in the human image.
Füglister is the director of the IAF Basel – Festival of Contemporary Art. He has been a member of the European Photography magazine editorial staff since 2006, and in 2009 he established piclet, a platform for hand-picked photographic portfolios and directory for photography festivals, magazines and institutions. He is the founder of the annual CAP Prize, the prize for contemporary African photography, tendered for the first time in 2012. Benjamin Füglister is a nominator for the renowned Prix Pictet, and is a member of the Photo Basel – International Art Fair artistic advisory circle. He regularly works as a reviewer at international photography festivals, such as the European Month of Photography in Vienna or the UPPA portfolio reviews. Benjamin Füglister serves as a judge for photography prizes like the Uganda Press Photo Award or the vfg Young Talent Award.
www.fcklister.works, www.benjaminfueglister.com
Noemi Steuer (Switzerland)
For more than twenty years, Noemi Steuer had worked as an actress at various German-speaking theatres (e.g. in Mannheim, Basel, Essen) and has played in many film and television productions (e.g. Die zweite Heimat by Edgar Reitz, Golden Lion of Venice 1992). In 1996, she started to study social anthropology and sociology in Cologne and Basel; in her Doctoral Thesis she focused on different forms of respect and social recognition in Mali.
Noemi worked for many years as a senior researcher at the Centre for African Studies in Basel. Here she co-designed and then coordinated the research project Construire son Avenir from 2013-2018. This longitudinal study explored aspirations and career practices of university graduates in Mali and Burkina Faso. At the same time, Noemi headed the communication project Longing for the Future, promoting different artistic formats to portray how young people in Africa and Europe find their own ways of handling an uncertain future. Starting in 2019, she developed and is coordinated an exchange and cooperation project between the universities of Bamako, Conakry, and Basel called IDEAS (International Digital Exchange between Africa and Switzerland).
Together with Clemens Bechtel and Freddy Sabimbona she designed the project Staging Times.
Noemi passed away on 7/14/2020. We try to continue the work on the project in her spirit and dedicate Staging Times to her.