AFRICA: SEE YOU, SEE ME! presents the history of African photography and its influence on non-African imaginings of Africa and the African diaspora in all its diversity. Together, the photographs are texts of African subjectivities, archives of history and societies in the making, and methods for understanding how images contribute to emancipation. They critique the pathologies of postcolonial and neocolonial Africa by depicting the continent‟s communities disentangling themselves from repressive nation states. While some of the photographs document the participation of Africans in state affairs, others portray the formation of post-national voluntary communities as tools of empowerment. Africa is more than a place. Africa is also in many spaces within and beyond the continent – in Europe, the Americas, and Asia -- that African artists pry open to install their presence. Their interventions in exhibition halls beyond the continent of their heritage have made a mark on recent photographs of Africa and Africans by non-African photographers. Moreover, they have spurred intra-African and inter-textual dialogues about self-representation in Africa itself.

The exhibition was the result of a proposal made by Lisbon‟s centre of contemporary arts, AFRICA.CONT to Awam Amkpa, the exhibition‟s curator and professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. After touring New York, Lisbon, Accra, Lagos, and Florence, the Macau- Angola Association invited Awam Amkpa to bring the exhibition to Li-Space as part of the 2011 Caochangdi PhotoSpring of Arles in Beijing. The Macau – Angola Association believes that it is important to promote a cultural exchange between Africa and China given the increasing strength of the economic relationship between the two regions.

Produced by AFRICA CONT (LISBOA)
Developed by The African Studies Program at New York University
Organization and Production Managed by Manuel C S (Lines Lab ltd)
Production Coordinated by Clara Brito and Joana Correia da Sliva
Produced in Beijing by Leo de Boisgisson (86/33 LINK) and Marie Terrieux (Shuang Culture ltd)
Curated by Awam Amkpa
Co-Curated by Madala Hilaire and Gu