Collection Online

Emmanuel C. Bofala
2014
from the Tipo Passe series

Medium
type C photograph
Measurements
100.0 × 80.0 cm
Edition
artist's proof
Accession Number
2016.206
Department
International Photography
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Contemporary Photography, 2016
© Edson Chagas. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work

Tipo Passe is a series that addresses questions of history, culture and identity. The artist’s birthplace of Angola was subjected to colonial rule by the Portuguese from 1575 until independence in 1975. The local population’s culture and traditions were largely disregarded and ‘unseen’ by the European colonialists. The striking masks depicted here are borrowed from private collections in Angola: removed from their original context, they are stripped of their meaning and transformed into decorative objects, hiding the identities and individual characteristics of the sitters.