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A portrait of the SAPE from Pointe-Noire, Congo

By Francesco Giusti

Introduction

Welcome to the first issue of Photostory Weekly. Every week we pick one submission from the Viewbook Photostory archive and provide it with background. We are starting off with Francesco Giusti's story SAPE, and with good reason. His portrait story about the elegant Congelese 'Sapeurs' earned the first prize in the Viewbook Photostory 2009 Awards. Then, just a few months later, the series won a World Press Photo Award. Now it will be exposed to the world with the traveling World Press Photo Exhibition. We asked photographer and writer Miranda Gavin to share her view on the SAPE series and talk with Francesco about how it all came together. Enjoy, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Francesco Giusti

Milan, Italy - Freelance documentary photographer oriented toward invest- igation of social realities, communities and identity related issues. www.francescogiusti.com

In Context

Flamboyant exterior
amidst a life of poverty

By Miranda Gavin

Francesco Giusti's series of environmental portraits, SAPE, Société des Ambianceurs et Personnes Élégantes, or Society of Funlovers and Elegant People, documents the colourful men from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who strut their stuff in designer-label suits. Sapeurs are a highly photogenic subject, so it's little surprise that they have been variously represented over the years (see Hot Blog post). What makes the Sapeurs such an extraordinary photographic subject, besides the immediate appeal of the surface aesthetics, is that the theatrics are performed amidst a life of poverty.

Giusti's series SAPE provides a snapshot of a subculture where the wearing and display of expensive clothes is a key element in the construction of identity. Also known as the “religion” or “cult of the cloth”, the Sapeurs revel in appearance and self-promotion, but beneath the flamboyant exterior lies an intriguing social structure that exists on the fringes of society with origins dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. Photographed using available light, Guisti takes portraits using a reportage approach with a fashion-orientated subject as he captures the sitters going about their daily lives.

Further, it is exclusively men, rather than women, who appear to have stepped out of the pages of a high-end fashion magazine and strike poses for the camera against a backdrop of dusty roads, brightly-painted shop fronts and crowded street scenes. It is a form of street theatre where once clothed in designer suits and carefully-chosen accessories, the transformation of the Sapeur is complete and all the world becomes his stage.

Miranda Gavin

Miranda is an experienced journalist, media trainer and photographer based in London. Besides her client work, she is Deputy and Online Editor of the bimonthly contemporary photography magazine, HotShoe International and runs the Hot Blog.
hotshoeblog.wordpress.com
www.mirandagavin.com


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CREATION - ABOUT THE IDEA AND PROCESS

"Sapologie is the science that studies the rules of elegance and savoir-vivre"

Giusti's portraits, taken over 20 days in May and June 2009, document a small community of Sapeurs from Pointe-Noire. Travelling along the Congo river for a corporate assignment, it was on the third visit that Giusti postponed his return flight to work on the series. “The first time I met a group of Sapeurs,” he recalls, “they were waiting at the airport to give a friend a special welcome. What appealed to me, at first, was their wish to be special, unique, different and original. The contrast with the humble environment where they live and the way they dress is strong.

“The desire to acquire and wear clothing brands is not only a way to attract attention and recognition from others, but these garments are the essence of their identity. 'Being' is primarily 'being elegant' and wearing them is an external sign of success, though this does not always correspond to the reality... If archeology is the science that studies historical human cultures and civilizations, Sapologie is the science that studies the rules of elegance and savoir-vivre.”

Using just a medium-format Hasselblad 500 C/M with a Carl Zeiss Planar 80/2,8T* lens, Guisti discussed the use of locations with the sitters, on occasions choosing to match them, “with the colours of the suit or with the character”. It was, Guisti says, “a search for the right portrait of each Sapeur; one capable of capturing each person's peculiar style and own way of declining (fading) elegance. The visibility, embodied by their excesses in dress, is also a form of resistance. Resistance against the West, former colonizer, as well as against the authoritarian structures of Congolese society”.

Of the fellow photographers working on the same topic, Giusti knows Daniele Tamagni, who recently published, The Gentlemen of Bacongo. “He dedicated time and energy to the project, “ Giusti says. “I respect his work on the SAPE as well as other photographers who previously worked on the same subject, like Héctor Mediavilla, or Baudouin Mouanda. Like the Sapeurs, every photographer has his own 'style'. I guess mine is a 'portrait-style' and with these portraits I want to go on working on the SAPE. It doesn't matter if some people get confused.”

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  • By Alrik on 2010 03 18

    Giusti’s work will be published in the next GUP magazine, the summer issue!

  • By ShamusNY on 2010 04 10

    It is useful to try everything in practice anyway and I like that here it’s always possible to find something new. smile

  • By Alrik on 2010 04 19

    http://exposurecompensation.com/2010/04/18/francesco-giusti/