Photographic backdrops in Cameroon: A study of intra-interregional and intergenerational circulations.
type: CreativeWork
description: This study is about photographic backdrops in the Cameroon visual scene, from the 1950s to 1980s, a time in which Cameroon moved from a divided state to a unified nation state. Several different forms of these backdrops were identified and mapped out intra- interregionally and intergenerationally amongst different people, places, and cultures. Researching the special materials that compose backdrops has foregrounded photo backdrops’ active voice in and out of the intra-interregional and intergenerational studio as a cultural material which interweaves and politicizes sitters at production, use, and circulation. It allows an investigation of the multi-layered and dense socio-cultural composition of backdrops as a colonial aspect of the complex nature of an ‘African photo studio’ in the post-colonial state. The thesis considered a wide geographic mapping of backdrops, providing a bigger picture of its curvilinear and multi-directional matted socio-cultural network. It sheds light on the synergy between the sitter, artist, and photographer in backdrop production as a material base of its connection of families to backdrops, the immediate society, and those of external nations. This approach situates the Cameroon visual scene within the larger photographic industry using a material, visual and anthropological bottom-up perspective to interrogate sitters, photographers, and artists. Substantial interviews and oral histories with photographers and backdrop painters, provided valid and reliable data through participant observation, photo-elicitation and interviews engaging photo backdrop stakeholders. These methodological approaches expand current debates and establish photo backdrops’ active voice in form and material of painted backdrops as an entangled, multi-layered, and matted intra-interregional and intergenerational object in Cameroon. This dissertation argues that the production, use, and circulation of intra-interregional and intergenerational backdrop material in…
abstract: This study is about photographic backdrops in the Cameroon visual scene, from the 1950s to 1980s, a time in which Cameroon moved from a divided state to a unified nation state. Several different forms of these backdrops were identified and mapped out intra- interregionally and intergenerationally amongst different people, places, and cultures. Researching the special materials that compose backdrops has foregrounded photo backdrops’ active voice in and out of the intra-interregional and intergenerational studio as a cultural material which interweaves and politicizes sitters at production, use, and circulation. It allows an investigation of the multi-layered and dense socio-cultural composition of backdrops as a colonial aspect of the complex nature of an ‘African photo studio’ in the post-colonial state. The thesis considered a wide geographic mapping of backdrops, providing a bigger picture of its curvilinear and multi-directional matted socio-cultural network. It sheds light on the synergy between the sitter, artist, and photographer in backdrop production as a material base of its connection of families to backdrops, the immediate society, and those of external nations. This approach situates the Cameroon visual scene within the larger photographic industry using a material, visual and anthropological bottom-up perspective to interrogate sitters, photographers, and artists. Substantial interviews and oral histories with photographers and backdrop painters, provided valid and reliable data through participant observation, photo-elicitation and interviews engaging photo backdrop stakeholders. These methodological approaches expand current debates and establish photo backdrops’ active voice in form and material of painted backdrops as an entangled, multi-layered, and matted intra-interregional and intergenerational object in Cameroon. This dissertation argues that the production, use, and circulation of intra-interregional and intergenerational backdrop material in…
author: Nyamndon, Valentine
license: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/f6a5d215-47a8-408e-80ec-3fdc7d75a7ac/download
date published: 2021-10
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:18:42Z
provider: De Montfort University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: De Montfort University