Sanlé Sory: Volta Photo — Weinstein Hammons Gallery
Photography is a witness to everything, a kind of proof of life. -Sanlé Sory After apprenticing to a photographer and learning how to use a Rolleiflex twin lens camera and process prints, Sanlé Sory (b. 1943, Burkina Faso) opened his independent photographic studio in 1960. Only a few months later, Upper Volta, the country that is now known as Burkina Faso, gained independence from France. Located in Bobo-Dioulasso, the cultural capital of Burkina Faso, Sory’s VOLTA PHOTO was soon recognized as the finest photography studio in the city. Sory’s studio portraits served as key documents of the vibrant youth culture during the two decades that followed the independence. The photographs show Fula, Malian and Voltaic teenagers and young adults in their twenties posing and holding props in front of backdrops painted by artists from Ghana and Benin. Operating between tradition and modernity, some dress up