Kerry Stuart Coppin - The Tooth of the Lion

University of Miami professors, Edmund Abaka, Ph.D. and Kerry Stuart Coppin, M.F.A., are collaborating on a project of mutual research interests, to document contemporary Urban Africa through photographic imagery and prose:

"We will undertake the deconstruction of the negative visual imagery which have so much defined the Western view and interpretation of the continent: the Dark Continent / Heart of Darkness . . . In particular, our research interest focuses on Urban Africa as the locus of spiritual, social, cultural, economic life and ambition of the continent. We undertake travel to urban centers in West Africa (Sub-Sahara Africa), but feel it necessary to contextualize our research in Africa, by research and visual examination of the relationship between so-called "White" North Africa, and the "Black" sub-Sahara region.

This project seeks to use photographs and essays to contextualize African urban life and to problematize the presentation of Africa as a desolate region devoid of art, culture, history . . . Through visual imagery, written and oral history, and original research we illuminate Urban African life in all its manifestations. We will show that the African City or urban center is a cornucopia of information that can help to present a holistic view of African history. It will demonstrate that the camera, in concert with the written word, has the power to make judgments, give meaning, speak for the powerless and create reality. This constructed reality ultimately can shape the form and content of our knowledge of Africa.

Each of us pursues our own course of description and interpretation. Each of us brings different ambition, skills, and experiences to the problem. Dr. Edmund Abaka, is a scholar of African History and culture. He is a national of Ghana. He brings an intimate knowledge of the customs, practices, and circumstances, of West Africa and the continent of Africa . . . Professor Coppin, is a documentary-style photographer working many decades to produce provocative photographic interpretations that elaborate and celebrate positive aspects of the Black community experience.

Our research is to be presented as a collaboration: a collection of essays and visual interpretations (documentary-style photographs), for publication and exhibition, on the history, role, and contemporary condition of Urban Africa, the continent of Africa and contemporary African. Together, we examine through travel, original visual research, and analysis of original documents found in public and private archives, the role of urban Africa in contemporary African society; its historical origins, and its relationship to western culture.

Of particular interest is in the role that the visual arts can and should play in the cultural and economic redevelopment of the African world . . . How the visual arts may play a powerful role, and may prove to be a vital tool, in the revisualization, revitalization, and reconstruction of the nations of Africa, and her peoples and communities in the New World. We hope through our visual research and documentary work to contribute to our sense of world community; to help "create a world where Blackness, and Black people, can be looked upon with open eyes . . ." We recognize that "there is no naked, honest, simple, way for it to be done [for a white man to look at a Black man]," but perhaps, as Black people, we may look at each other . . ."

A note on the title: "The Tooth of the Lion'
We can allow language, or culture, national boundaries and borders, oceans, mountains, deserts; economic and political systems of government to separate and alienate us. Or, we may choose to use all the systems of contemporary society / post-modern world, including systems of art, as tools to forge unions between the many diverse and disparate communities of African descent in the New World, and around the globe! they may choose to use these systems, of art and culture, to cultivate, comment upon, and preserve, the experience and expression of their communities - to use art as a catalyst for social, cultural and economic change - for the ultimate reconstruction of the nations of Africa and her many communities and countries in the New World. So, the title of this presentation, The Tooth of the Lion, is metaphor for the power of artistic discipline to provoke and inspire change, but also, metaphor for the role of urban Africa as the locus of political, social, economic and spiritual, concern of the African continent as we enter a new millennium (A hoped-for period of joy, serenity, prosperity, and justice . . .)

Kerry Stuart Coppin, (Photographer) with Edmund Abaka (writer)

www.africanimagery.com