Sanlé Sory: Volta Photo

Edited with text by Matthew S. Witkovsky. Text by Antawan Byrd, Florent Mazzoleni.

Born in Burkina Faso in 1943, Sanlé Sory runs a portrait studio in Bobo-Dioulasso. He opened his business in 1960, the year that Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) declared independence from France. For many years, Sanlé also organized music parties around the city; he served as the official photographer for Volta Jazz, a key popular music orchestra in the 1960s and ’70s.

The studio photographs of Sanlé Sory and his participation in the vibrant music scene in Bobo-Dioulasso give us a picture of a cosmopolitan city shaping its independent identity in the 1960s through to the ’80s, the heyday of West African independence movements.

English

2018, 182pp. 

7.5 x 0.9 x 10.2 inches

ISBN: 9783958294004