ROBERT W. WOODRUFF LIBRARY OF THE ATLANTA UNIVERSITY CENTER HOST AFRICA IN MIND: PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT NOVEMBER 17, 2005 - FEBRUARY 28, 2006

From Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, Senegal, and Nigeria, the photography exhibit “Africa in Mind” offers glimpses of contemporary West Africa. The diversity of West African vistas is breathtaking: towering baobab trees against the ochre tones of the Sahel; lush palms and mangroves on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea; great cities from Dakar to Abidjan to Cotonou. Even more intriguing is the diversity of cultures and lifestyles in the region.

The photographer, Dr. Michael Janis, a former journalist with Reuters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, is Assistant Professor of English at Morehouse College. Dr. Janis teaches the course “The West African Novel” and sponsors the Morehouse African Film Society. His photography exhibit provides a “walking tour” of rural and urban life, in color and black-and-white pictures. Dr. Janis hopes the pictures will inspire viewers to think critically about images of African life. Dr. Janis says, “Putting ‘Africa in mind’ entails examining preconceptions, stereotypes, and expectations, including the seemingly endless procession of negative images of Africa in the Western media.”

In conjunction with the exhibit Dr. Janis will give two lectures, one on November 17, 2005 at 1:00 p.m. and the other during the Morehouse-sponsored Africa Awareness Week in February 2006. Drawing upon journalistic experience and upon the theoretical perspectives of African thinkers, media analysis, and critical theory, the lectures will examine links between colonialist and media images, and suggests that there is a persistent need for the re-examination of African images and of us as media producers and consumers. Photographs that show even the smallest glimpses of the diversity of life in West Africa may encourage viewers to keep Africa in mind, in our intellectual and political practices, and in our hearts.

The exhibit and lectures are free and open to the public. They will be held in the Robert W. Woodruff Library Exhibition Hall, 111 James P. Brawley Drive S.W. Atlanta, GA.