Resignifications of images produced in Mali, Kenya and India based on the semiotics of photography
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Abstract
This article aims to analyze the meanings of photographs produced in Mali, Kenya, and India, after their colonization, since these images enable a reflection on the intercultural uses of photographic images. To this end, two different levels of relevance are taken into account when considering the meaning of these images, based on a method of understanding visual significance postulated by the semiotics of photography. First, the images are understood as a text-statement, in which the escape lines of these images weave in relation to a colonial visuality, based on the use of a unifocal perspective of the images. Local photographic traditions creatively deform visuality, circumscribing photographs within a de-narrativized and de-perspectivized scope of the photographic surface and valuing the tactility of the gaze. Secondly, photographic statutes are considered, which destroy the documentary value of images and reorder them based on other logics of production and understanding. It is observed how certain studio portraits recreate a social situation that no longer places realism at the center of the visual message, but takes photography as a means of imagining scenes and belonging to places that bring the photographed subject closer to modern values. The results of the reflections developed in the article attest that, while certain photographic practices promote forms of domination of others, alternatively, reordering of practices can be observed around the reallocation of subjective positions that are part of the photographic construction.
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