Come and discover the global impact of the photograph taken of a Mangbetu woman in the Congo in 1920.
What image comes to mind when you think of an African woman?
It is probably that of Nobosudru, a Mangbetu woman with a very peculiar skull, first photographed in 1920 in the Congo. Since then, her image has traveled around the world, becoming one of the symbols of Africa.
The snapshot was taken by George Specht and Léon Poirier during the Citroën expedition from Algeria to Cape Town.
Initially, Nobosudru was used as an icon to represent and promote the colonial vision of Africa. From there, she started to appear in documentaries, stamps, ethnological texts, postcards, advertising, art, and fashion.
She has been used for everything!
So much so that there are more than 8,000 photographs, 27,000 meters of film, and 15 albums of drawings featuring her.
IVAM has gathered 80 of these pieces to summarize and analyze how this image went viral.
The exhibition will be available until December 8th, and you can get your tickets here.
Are you going to miss it?
