Stratigrafia fotografica in terreni contesi: Mémoire di Sammy Baloji

Sammy Baloji’s Mémoire (2004-2006) is a series of twenty-nine digital photomontages that superimpose black-and-white archival images from the early Twentieth century onto present-day coloured photo graphs, taken by the artist in the same area: a once-prosper ous mining region near his hometown Lubumbashi. Through the contrast of hue and scenery, Baloji’s work critically engages with the collapse between the colonial past and postcolonial decline of the Katanga Province of drc. This article forwards an original reading of the series through the twin lenses of photography studies and ar chaeology, in order to highlight how Baloji’s research driven artistic practice is far from ofering a shallow spec tacle of the ruins of colonialism. Deep mapping and stratigraphy are deployed as conceptual tools to move across the complexity of the archival layers in the photo graphs, as they not only disclose information about the photo archive as palimpsest, but also expose the ways Mém oire enacts a form of epistemic disobedience through the activation of latent archival afordances that hinder sim plistic readings.