Gelatin silver print
“Everyone chooses what they want in photography,” Sory once said. First opening his studio, Volta Photo, in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso), in 1960, Sory organized bals poussières (or “dust balls,” named after the dirt clouds that dancers kicked up) in the fields of the nearby
Kou Valley. The sound of his Multiblitz flash accompanied the percussion at parties, setting an effusive tone for his reportage de nuit (nighttime journalism). At Volta Photo, Sory’s portraits made possible a particular process of being and becoming for his sitters. He reflected the ideas that they wanted to communicate—whether to friends, lovers, strangers, or themselves.
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, 2025
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Portraiture and Political Imagination
2 SouthCan a photographic portrait inspire political imagination? Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination examines how photographers and their sitters contributed to the proliferation of Pan-African solidarity during the mid-20th century.
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