Africa/ China: "How Africans Want to be Seen Rather than how They are Forced to be Seen"

Watch the April 2011 Beijing photography exhibition: Africa: See You, See Me! tagged Postcolonial African Photography and its Global Influence of Representing Africa and its Diaspora. It includes photographs by Angele Etoundi Essamba (Cameroon), Majida Khattari (Morocco) and Marco Ambrosi (Italy), Mario Macilau (Mozambique)... Over at WSJ Asian Scene blog, Lara Farrar quotes the curator Awam Amkpa:

Africa: See You, See Me!” features the work of 36 African and non-African photographers, including Angele Etoundi Essamba from Cameroon, Moroccan Majida Khattari and Italian Marco Ambrosi. China, which has a growing business presence in Africa, seemed an important place to display the photographs, said Awam Amkpa, the exhibition’s curator, who described the images in the show as an illustration of “how Africans want to be seen rather than how they are forced to be seen.” The Chinese “don’t know the diversity, the robustness of African culture,” Mr. Amkpa, a Nigerian, said. “I think it is an opportunity for us to show this Africa that is a very modern and diverse continent…. We are not always at war. We are not always starving.” (more)

Slideshow of the exhibition - here.