HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Invisible ally captures LGBTI lives through a lens
Raymond Dakoua’s photographic portraits of members of the LGBTI communities in the Ivory Coast and Mozambique are striking in their composition, in the postures and expressions of their subjects and in the framing of those subjects by evocative settings — from bedrooms and beaches to football fields and nightclubs. But as I reflected on the exhibition, A Place To Call Their Own (at the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg until March 17), what struck me most were the descriptive captions the Belgian-Ivorian artist has given his images. Some of these mini-narratives provide first or full names of the subjects; some keep them anonymous, but give the subjects a voice by quoting or paraphrasing them. Some add background information about the context in which the photograph was taken; some offer only a single detail. One senses that Dakoua wants to be faithful to his subjects’ self-image, to respect their public and private lives. Still, there is an almost anthropological impulse behind the desc...
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