Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine). In 1930, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945) and photographer Frédéric Gadmer (1878-1954) were sent to Dahomey by Albert Kahn for a mission of nearly five months during which they documented customs, lifestyles and popular architecture for the “Archives of the Planet” project.
The exhibition at the Albert Kahn Museum reveals part of this collection – 1,102 autochromes and 140 reels of film –, contextualizing it in the colonial history of Dahomey. The term “colonization” also comes up numerous times in theater texts and labels, including those intended for young audiences. An interactive mediation system invites children to explore the definitions of “colonization” and “religion”, based on images taken from the photographic collection. Curators Julien Faure-Conorton and David-Sean Thomas attempt to combine presentation of the collection and a critical look at the conditions of its production, notably through showcases of works published in the 1920s and 1930s which deal with “negro arts” or agricultural resources, two aspects linked to the colonization of West Africa. The collection itself testifies to the dual approach of Father Aupiais, both Catholic missionary and amateur ethnologist, aware of the brutality of colonialism: in parallel with photographs and films intended for Albert Kahn, the priest had documentaries made on the Catholic communities of Dahomey with the aim of evangelization.
Frédéric Gadmer (1878-1954), Portrait of Chief Zodéougan, Zado, Dahomey (Benin)February 28, 1930, autochrome, 12 x 9 cm.
Photo Frédéric Gadmer
A plural scenography
The fairly fluid route thus addresses the question of colonization several times, without it encroaching on other themes: voodoo, social organization, the role of kings and tribal chiefs, colonial extractivism (palm oil, minerals, coffee) are discussed throughout the visit. The digitized and enlarged autochromes alternate with archives and objects from museum collections (royal scepters, statuettes, jewelry) in a fairly stripped-down scenography by Agence Explosition. Contemporary works bring a touch of fiction or subjectivity, such as those of Roméo Mivekannin, descendant of King Béhanzin defeated by the French in 1894. Note that in the continuity of Father Aupiais, the curators endeavor to highlight animist beliefs and their interaction with Catholicism, as evidenced by dozens of photographs and film extracts, at the risk of boring the visitor.
Finally, the tour reveals the material conditions of the mission – Gadmer’s devices, his work notebook and unpublished prints. A short video analyzes the staging work accomplished by Aupiais and Gadmer with the complicity of their informants, although they claim “spontaneity” filmed scenes. For the commissioners, these archives show “the dignity of the population under colonial influence”an ambiguous formula since we do not know under what conditions the informants collaborated in the mission.
The last section traces the evolution of the collection, exhibited in 1931 in Paris on the occasion of the Colonial Exhibition, in the presence of dignitaries from Dahomey, then presented in several French museums and during Father Aupiais’ conferences until the 1940s. The Albert Kahn Museum continues to exploit these archives by conducting field research in Benin to find traces of the 1930 mission, like the Musée du quai Branly with the Dakar-Djibouti mission.
