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Meeting Uwe Ommer

In the 1980s Ivory Coast economy was booming and Abidjan became the capital city of African fashion. Uwe Ommer was invited to take photos of the much talented Chris Seydou's fashion shows. Chris Seydou was a young Malian stylist whose work with the African fabric and whose magnificent fashion shows won him international acclaim.

This was when I met Uwe Ommer, one of the first to photograph African fashion and elegance. He also illustrated a book by Leopold Sedar Senghor Black Ladies with photographs magnifying black beauty as sung by the poet. In 1983-84, I was creating Bilokos which were part of a process of questionning my artistic work.

The word biloko means luggage in the Sangho language of central Africa. I would go to market places and villages in search of materials to make and represent bilokos as 'mental luggage', my new form of expression.

Uwe appreciated my art and proposed to photograph my works as well as its making. We would go together through Ivory Coast and Mali to these markets where bones, feathers, hides and all kinds of claws, used by Africans to create fetishes, could be found. And I would make these objects mine.

We planned a book from this experience but it unfortunately never came into being. This was how we travelled for the first time together and shared the same outlook on Africa. Uwe photographed many of my works (sculptures and doors).

He's always been the one who can best perveive the 'soul' of my work. In the fall and winter of 2007 and the spring of 2008, we went on a journey in the footsteps of the Japanese poet, Matsuo Bashô, when I was creating ephemeral works in Japan and again our symbiosis was confirmed.

Kaidin

Uwe Ommer et kaïdin
Bord du lac Biwa - 30 Avril 2008
(www.uweommer.eu)