For almost a century, the only known photograph of Cheikh Amadou Bamba, founder of a Senegalese Sufi order, was at the origin of the country’s fascinating visual culture around the Sufi saint. All reproductions of the saint were based on this single image. However, in the last decade other photographs of Bamba have re-surfaced in the public sphere. Their appearance upset the established iconography of the Sufi saint and led to intense debate among the Saint’s followers about their authenticity. This lecture will examine how the authenticity of these photographs was eventually certified and the aura of the image reinforced. The lecture examines this re-enchantment of the image and discusses its implications for questions around epistemic decolonization of the archive.

This is a hybrid Event and online Participation will be possible under the following link: 
https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=mf6567731b9d89b015f90863e42eff5c4