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Der Fotograf Guillaume Bonn (geboren in Madagaskar) berichtet in seinen dokumentarischen Arbeiten von sozialen und politischen Ereignissen im Kongo, in Ruanda, Tansania oder Somalia etwa für die New York Times, The Guardian Magazin und Vanity Fair . Seine ostafrikanische Heimat ist dem in Paris, Nairobi und London lebenden Künstler zu einer "Moskitoküste" der Gegenwart geworden: Wie zur Kolonialzeit die nach ihren Ureinwohnern benannte Miskitoküste Nicaraguas im Osten der Karibik - spanisch auch Costa de los mosquitos -, so wandelt sich heute das östliche Afrika: Mehr denn je heimgesucht von Stechmücken und Malaria, gezeichnet von den Spuren der Diktatur und des Krieges, dem Konsum und Kommerz der westlichen Welt ausgeliefert. Die Bilder von Guillaume Bonn zeigen inmitten moderner Wolkenkratzer, neuer Highways und vermeintlicher technischer Verbesserungen das alte Afrika mit seiner unbeugsam lebendigen, ursprünglichen Kultur.
"I cannot push away this feeling of sadness I have in seeing all these changes. My antidote has been to document the old Africa struggling to survive and the new one that is emerging." Guillaume Bonn
Summary
In his documentary work, photographer Guillaume Bonn (born in Madagascar) has been recording social and political events in Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, or Somalia for publications such as the New York Times, Guardian Magazine, and Vanity Fair. For the artist, who lives in Paris, Nairobi, and London, his East African home has become today’s “Mosquito Coast”: much the same as during the colonial era in the region in the eastern Caribbean called the Miskito or Mosquito Coast after its indigenous people, eastern Africa is currently experiencing a transformation—mosquito- and malaria-ridden, marked by the traces of dictatorship and war, at the mercy of the consumption and commerce of the Western world. Guillaume Bonn’s photographs present the old Africa in its unrelentingly vibrant native culture in the midst of modern skyscrapers, new highways, and what are purported to be technical improvements.
“I cannot push away this feeling of sadness I have in seeing all these changes. My antidote has been to document the old Africa struggling to survive and the new one that is emerging.” Guillaume Bonn
