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Archiving a Cameroonian photographic studio with the help of the British Library ‘Endangered Archives Programme’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

David Zeitlyn
David Zeitlyn*
Affiliation:
University of Kent
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Extract

In 2005 I helped organise an exhibition of the work of two Cameroonian studio photographers in the National Portrait Gallery, London (see ed. Swenson 2005). This arose from my twenty year involvement as a social anthropologist working in Cameroon. One of the photographers, Joseph Chila, introduced me to Jacques Touselle who had taught him photography in the early 1960s. Together we made several visits to ‘Photo Jacques’ in Mbouda, Western Province, and I was shown the pile of boxes containing what I now know to be some 40,000 negatives, which is the legacy of Touselle's 40 year career. The collection is an unparalleled archive of local photographic practices spanning several decades. With the help of the British Library's ‘Endangered Archives Programme’ the negatives are being scanned and catalogued as a first step to ensuring their long term survival.

Since pioneering work in the late 1970s (e.g. Sprague 1978) there has been an explosion of interest in African photography.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 107 , 2008 , pp. 13 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2008

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