KYOTOGRAPHIE Traveling Exhibition｜Baudouin Mouanda

Baudouin Mouanda

The Sapeurs of Bacongo

Fashionistas who have captured the world’s imagination, the Congo’s sapeurs are adherents of a style movement known as SAPE, which stands for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (‘Society of Ambience Makers and Elegant People’) in French. The style is modeled on the elegant Parisian gentleman of the 50s and 60s as well as the classic English dandy, and became popular among migrants who travelled to West Africa and Europe in the 1960s.
The SAPE has a number of unwritten rules: the number of colors used to achieve a coordinated ensemble should be no more than three; also, while incorporating the latest fashions, attention should be paid to accessorizing to achieve a distinct personal style. On holidays, the sapeurs parade themselves on the street, consciously creating an entertaining spectacle with their unique poise and attitude. In a society that is by no means affluent, many sapeurs nevertheless spend the majority of their wages on personal adornment. Each district has its own sapeurs, but the emphasis isn’t just on fashion. The sapeur culture respects values such as morality, non-violence, and freedom of speech, and is said to only accept those who adhere to this code.
Baudouin Mouanda (born 1981, Brazzaville) won the Young Talent Award at the 2009 African Photography Biennial with his images of the sapeurs. Since then, he has become a high-profile artist whose work is shown world- wide. Mouanda was raised in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, but first became interested in the sapeurs after later encountering them in Paris, where he was studying journalism.
“In 2007, I was delighted to find the sapeurs livening up the Paris metro. Later, I realized that they had played a very important role in Brazzaville in 1998–99, after the end of the civil war. There wasn’t anything left to do in town; everything was shut down. For the traumatised population, the attraction of the sapeurs was to show that you had to have hope. Their message was ‘We didn’t get dressed up to stay at home! We have been spared by the hostilities and we are lucky to be alive’.” *
Mouanda photographs these gentlemen not in assumed poses, but as they stroll along the street, which he says better captures their lifestyle and ambience. His first solo exhibition in Japan, as part of the KYOTOG- RAPHIE 2015 exhibition program, will be accompanied by an installation combining image projection with African music.

*The Leica Camera Blog. “Baudouin Mouanda: The Ins and Outs of S.A.P.E.”