David Pace: Sur La Route and Market Day
David Pace brought several series to Photolucida, captured in West Africa. David is the resident director of Santa Clara University’s study abroad program in West Africa and spends up to ten weeks each year with students in the small country of Burkina Faso, where he has been photographing annually since 2007. I am featuring two of his series, Sur La Route and Market Day, both terrific portrait projects that celebrate the people he encounters.
David received the 2011 Work-In-Process Prize from Daylight Magazine and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. His work was included in the 2012 biennial Anthology at the Southeast Museum of Photography. His solo exhibition Burkina Faso: Night and Day appeared at the Griffin Museum of Photography in 2013. Bricks: Photographs by David Pace opens at 511 Gallery in New York City in September 2013. Pace’s photographs of rural Africa have appeared in Lens Culture, aCurator.com and Daylight Magazine.
In the western media, Africa is often portrayed either as a continent of war, famine, corruption and disease, or as an exotic place for safaris and tribal rituals. The simple beauty of everyday life is seldom seen. The Sur La Route series presents contemporary village life in a positive and realistic light, and emphasizes the strength and dignity of the people of Bereba.
Although I photograph on the street and not in the studio, it was easy to find the colorful backgrounds I had in mind in Bereba on market day. In their booths merchants hang bolts of colorful textiles, sheets, blankets and fabrics of every color. My practice is to find a suitable background with even, soft lighting and wait for my subjects to appear. The market is always crowded with villagers dressed in their finest clothes so I seldom have long to wait.
Although I photograph on the street and not in the studio, it was easy to find the colorful backgrounds I had in mind in Bereba on market day. In their booths merchants hang bolts of colorful textiles, sheets, blankets and fabrics of every color. My practice is to find a suitable background with even, soft lighting and wait for my subjects to appear. The market is always crowded with villagers dressed in their finest clothes so I seldom have long to wait.
Beyond the purely formal concerns in this work I am interested in the blending of European and American clothing with traditional West African fabrics. This demonstrates the extent to which globalization permeates even remote regions of Africa.
I want to portray contemporary village life in a positive and realistic light, emphasizing the beauty and dignity of the people of Bereba.
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