EP13: To Organise a place as if it was a photograph – with Eric Gyamfi
07/22/21 • 64 min
Eric Gyamfi (1990, Ghana) is a visual artist working with and within photography. This podcast conversation was induced by the inclusion of his work in the book, Africa State of Mind: Contemporary Photography Re-imagines A Continent “by Ekow Eshun. Rightfully so, the conversation build’s on Eshun’s central premise of focusing on photographers/works that fall within the 21st-century timeframe. Eric Gyamfi’s work, although beautifully photogenic, accounts for processes outside and beyond the frame. He considers the photographic medium as a space to be unravelled. Thus when, in the podcast, he says “beyond wanting to represent something, I have been more interested in what a photograph is composed of”, he offers what is invariably an accessible entry point into his fundamental approach to the medium. This assertion cuts through his various bodies of work from, “Just Like Us” (published in “Africa State of Mind”) to his recent work titled “The things that are left hanging, in the air like a rumour”.
If Time is an indispensable component of photography, Gyamfi seems to be preoccupied with how space, materiality, organisms and human interactions collude to give rise to the techno-chemical reaction which becomes the photograph. “How can I organise a place (or space) as if it was a photograph?” is the question underlining his recent body of work. Yet what is unique to space if not an articulation of the crossroads between past, present and the future? What is referenced here is photography’s ability to make an event out of disparate and dispersed information, across time, some of which elude the grasp of known history and “hanging in the air like a rumour”.
It is one thing to speak of a life-giving process and another to know how to bring such disposition into one’s artistic practice. When Gyamfi speaks of the intriguing possibility of non-human entities—enzymes, algae, bacteria—participating in his photosynthetic photographic process, my mind wanders off to many tangents of radiant connections between us and our world. I would think, for instance, of how allowing oneself to be preoccupied with such “little things”, as he called it, about the co-habitative nature of our world, helps our grasp of how seriously damaged our world has become. Another example comes to mind: John Akomfrah’s “Vertigo Sea” is a large scale, yet grisly, counterpart of Eric Gyamfi’s thoughts. I can’t he
Hi, amazing listeners! Emeka Okereke here. I am the founder and host of this show. If you’ve enjoyed the stories, insights, and creativity we bring to this podcast series, I invite you to join my Patreon community at patreon.com/EmekaOkereke. 🎉
By becoming a patron, you’ll gain exclusive access to my artistic world, including:
• Behind-the-scenes content from my photography projects.
• Sneak peeks of upcoming films, vlogs, and video podcasts.
• Exclusive DJ playlists curated just for you.
• Bonus podcast episodes and a chance to contribute to future topics.
Whether you’re a fan of the podcast, my visual storytelling, or simply love art and creativity, there’s a tier for you. Your support helps me continue creating high-quality content, and it truly means the world to me.
Thank you for listening. Follow Nkata Podcast Station on Instagram @nkatapodcast and Twitter.
See the website for extensive materials: nkatapodcast.com
Eric Gyamfi (1990, Ghana) is a visual artist working with and within photography. This podcast conversation was induced by the inclusion of his work in the book, Africa State of Mind: Contemporary Photography Re-imagines A Continent “by Ekow Eshun. Rightfully so, the conversation build’s on Eshun’s central premise of focusing on photographers/works that fall within the 21st-century timeframe. Eric Gyamfi’s work, although beautifully photogenic, accounts for processes outside and beyond the frame. He considers the photographic medium as a space to be unravelled. Thus when, in the podcast, he says “beyond wanting to represent something, I have been more interested in what a photograph is composed of”, he offers what is invariably an accessible entry point into his fundamental approach to the medium. This assertion cuts through his various bodies of work from, “Just Like Us” (published in “Africa State of Mind”) to his recent work titled “The things that are left hanging, in the air like a rumour”.
If Time is an indispensable component of photography, Gyamfi seems to be preoccupied with how space, materiality, organisms and human interactions collude to give rise to the techno-chemical reaction which becomes the photograph. “How can I organise a place (or space) as if it was a photograph?” is the question underlining his recent body of work. Yet what is unique to space if not an articulation of the crossroads between past, present and the future? What is referenced here is photography’s ability to make an event out of disparate and dispersed information, across time, some of which elude the grasp of known history and “hanging in the air like a rumour”.
It is one thing to speak of a life-giving process and another to know how to bring such disposition into one’s artistic practice. When Gyamfi speaks of the intriguing possibility of non-human entities—enzymes, algae, bacteria—participating in his photosynthetic photographic process, my mind wanders off to many tangents of radiant connections between us and our world. I would think, for instance, of how allowing oneself to be preoccupied with such “little things”, as he called it, about the co-habitative nature of our world, helps our grasp of how seriously damaged our world has become. Another example comes to mind: John Akomfrah’s “Vertigo Sea” is a large scale, yet grisly, counterpart of Eric Gyamfi’s thoughts. I can’t he
Hi, amazing listeners! Emeka Okereke here. I am the founder and host of this show. If you’ve enjoyed the stories, insights, and creativity we bring to this podcast series, I invite you to join my Patreon community at patreon.com/EmekaOkereke. 🎉
By becoming a patron, you’ll gain exclusive access to my artistic world, including:
• Behind-the-scenes content from my photography projects.
• Sneak peeks of upcoming films, vlogs, and video podcasts.
• Exclusive DJ playlists curated just for you.
• Bonus podcast episodes and a chance to contribute to future topics.
Whether you’re a fan of the podcast, my visual storytelling, or simply love art and creativity, there’s a tier for you. Your support helps me continue creating high-quality content, and it truly means the world to me.
Thank you for listening. Follow Nkata Podcast Station on Instagram @nkatapodcast and Twitter.
See the website for extensive materials: nkatapodcast.com
Previous Episode
DoTShorts #2: Inner Voice
In the second episode of Dots of Thoughts Shorts, Emeka shares a few thoughts and impulses about what the inner voice means for him.
Duration: 9:19 mins.
Join the conversation and leave a comment on your preferred listening platform.
Hi, amazing listeners! Emeka Okereke here. I am the founder and host of this show. If you’ve enjoyed the stories, insights, and creativity we bring to this podcast series, I invite you to join my Patreon community at patreon.com/EmekaOkereke. 🎉
By becoming a patron, you’ll gain exclusive access to my artistic world, including:
• Behind-the-scenes content from my photography projects.
• Sneak peeks of upcoming films, vlogs, and video podcasts.
• Exclusive DJ playlists curated just for you.
• Bonus podcast episodes and a chance to contribute to future topics.
Whether you’re a fan of the podcast, my visual storytelling, or simply love art and creativity, there’s a tier for you. Your support helps me continue creating high-quality content, and it truly means the world to me.
Thank you for listening. Follow Nkata Podcast Station on Instagram @nkatapodcast and Twitter.
See the website for extensive materials: nkatapodcast.com
Next Episode
EP14: Being Palestinian, a Life of Permanent Temporality – with Bahaa Abudaya
In 2006, I remember photographing, in Paris, the protest against killings that then took place in Isreal and Palestine. In the photo, a father is clutching his little daughter on one hand, while with the other hand, waves a placard that reads “Le meme age que ma fille” (same age as my daughter). I remember feeling deeply struck by this double emphasis aimed at reiterating what should be so obvious: the trail and ensuing threads of human violence – like mitochondria – run and connect to us all.
In this podcast conversation, I caught up with a longtime friend and fellow artist Bahaa Abudaya to discuss the most recent eruption of violence which took place in May 2021.
Bahaa left Gaza when he was two years old. Since then, he has roamed the earth. Yet he claims: no matter where I go, I always consider myself a Palestinian even though I do not know, from lived experience, what Palestine is as a place. He goes on to explain that this deeply inward, yet unforced identification with Palestine is constitutive of his disposition as one who is in a state of permanent temporality.
“I am never clear where I should be. I have developed a kind of personality through this kind of exile”.
Here, we are presented with the paradox often a fixture of border-bodies: on one hand, a solace accompanies the feeling of never being beholden to a place. On the other hand, there is something about transience that denies one a sense of continuity. Rightfully so, Bahaa concludes that his life is floating somewhere in between these unresolvable polarities.
His Palestine is one he anchors to a memory of displacement. He recalls an anecdotal event that took place when he was ten years old. His grandmother took him to the site where her home once stood before the occupation. The most indelible moment of the visit was witnessing his grandmother shed tears profusely. As a child, he could not understand why absence meant so much for her. Her tears became symbolic of an incomprehensible, ungraspable loss that he would carry with him as a placeholder for what it means to be Palestinian. “Every Palestinian makes his or her own Palestine for themselves”, he said in the podcast. They make their Palestine out of ruins and loss. That is why the picture of young Palestinian kids throwing pebbles at Israeli armoured tanks should be read beyond its photogenic attributes.
The Israeli army, c
Hi, amazing listeners! Emeka Okereke here. I am the founder and host of this show. If you’ve enjoyed the stories, insights, and creativity we bring to this podcast series, I invite you to join my Patreon community at patreon.com/EmekaOkereke. 🎉
By becoming a patron, you’ll gain exclusive access to my artistic world, including:
• Behind-the-scenes content from my photography projects.
• Sneak peeks of upcoming films, vlogs, and video podcasts.
• Exclusive DJ playlists curated just for you.
• Bonus podcast episodes and a chance to contribute to future topics.
Whether you’re a fan of the podcast, my visual storytelling, or simply love art and creativity, there’s a tier for you. Your support helps me continue creating high-quality content, and it truly means the world to me.
Thank you for listening. Follow Nkata Podcast Station on Instagram @nkatapodcast and Twitter.
See the website for extensive materials: nkatapodcast.com
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