20 Millions. It's, according to the World Bank, the number of african people that now belongs to this new emerging social class, the african middle class. The emergence of this social class, enjoying a relative prosperity, is creating new consumption patterns in Africa, and leading consumer good giants to invest massively on the continent.
Philippe Sibelly is a french photographer and art teacher, based in London in the United Kingdom. Throughout his photographic project, The Other Africa, he aims to promote a new vision for Africa, far from usual clichés of western media. In order to do this, he has started to tour each african country to settle an exhibition of 54 pictures, one per country. Interview of an enlightened observer.
Afrique Avenir : How was “The Other Africa” born?
Philippe Sibelly : The Other Africa was born from conversations with Senegalese friends and from having enough of witnessing the constant negative coverage of Africa in the Western media.
In 2004, friends from Dakar shared with me how shocked they were to see so many depressing articles about Africa published in the Western press. They were not denying Africa faces many issues but were quite surprised by the complete absence of positive news coming from the continent. According the Western media, Africa is only defined by extremes: famine, misery and war or corruption and the indecent fortune of some. My friends from Dakar are neither poor nor rich. In fact their way of life, like the one of many other Africans, is very close to mine in London.
Afrique Avenir : Why were you interested by the African middle class in particular? Is it a new phenomenon in Africa?
Philippe Sibelly : When I started this project in 2005, I was interested in depicting 'normality' in Africa, far from the extremes. I decided to concentrate my images on portraits of professionals of the continent, usually on their workplace. To avoid any journalistic connotation I chose to create posed photographs. There are no surprises, the images are very 'calm' and reassuring. It seemed to me that “middle class” would be a very relevant title for this part of the project. The word “middle” was very fitting as it is the opposite of “extremes”. It is also the term defining best the people I want to photograph, professionals with a lifestyle close to mine: work, leisure, going out, weekend, family...
I do not pretend I am a specialist on this subject and the term “Middle Class” remains quite subjective, but it seems to me this class is an emerging one in Africa. With new large infrastructural investments, specially from China, this class is bound to grow: better roads, better health, better productivity, better education... These changes should also slow down the exodus of young African talents towards Europe, helping the middle class to grow and so on.
I believe this African middle class will hugely influence changes on the continent in the long term.
Afrique Avenir : How would you define the African middle class? What are its habits?
Philippe Sibelly : I use my life style as a benchmark. I never use financial criteria to base my judgement.
There is no doubt to get similar advantages in Africa and Europe you need very different amounts of money. Similarly, there are huge differences within Europe. You can probably achieve much higher quality of life in Greece than in the UK, on an equal salary. Once again, I am not an economist, merely a witness. I try to be as objective as possible but comparing quality of life from one place to another is a subjective matter.
Before visiting a country I try to contact as many people as possible through friends in Africa or on the net (search for companies, clubs or on social network sites..). My models are always professionals. They work and have social activities after work and at weekends. I actually find social activities and family relationships a lot more developed in Africa than in Europe. It is quite difficult for me to push my research any further before photographing my models. I very rarely discover what are the exact material assets of the people photographed for example. I would relish being able to research further but it would mean spending a lot longer on location, which is not possible.
Afrique Avenir : What do you want to show through your photos of this new emerging middle class?
Philippe Sibelly : The images are very simple but they are meant to make the viewer think. The first question I would hope people ask themselves is “why”? Why go to Cape Verde to photograph a driving instructor or go to Gabon to photograph a pret a porter sales woman? The project also wants to create an illusion: these images could have been taken anywhere. This is why I also photograph cities at night. These photos offer a modern vision of the continent and at first glance they could have been shot in any city on the planet.
I say “at first glance” because if the viewer stops and spends some time observing the images, some details may give away the fragile nature of this quality of life. The headlights lines from the oncoming traffic in Nouakchott are wavy rather than straight, due to the bumpy road cover; under the lines created by the lights of a plane landing in Dakar you can see a broken street light. The ripped net behind the tennis instructor in Gabon is another sign.
We tend to forget how young African nations are. The changes necessary to the expansion of the middle class will take generations, but it is important to show this class exists.
Afrique Avenir : How do Africans perceive your project?
Philippe Sibelly : The greatest motivation for me to continue developing this project is the response I get from the people I photograph, their enthusiasm. I also receive many positive responses on the project's new Facebook page I created for the project. I have also noticed strong interest for the first exhibition of the work in development in Africa, starting at the Alliance Française d'Accra on March 11. Coming to the opening would be the perfect excuse to discover Africa!
If you want to see more of Sibelly's artwork, you can visit his website : http://www.theotherafrica.eu/
You are a photojournalist and want to promote your work on Afrique Avenir, contact us : contact(at)afriqueavenir.org
