Flamboya - Viviane Sassen

Publisher: Contrasto
Year: 2008
Format: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition,
Condition: Very Good (Minor chipping to tail of spine)
Size: 30,8 x 24,7 cm

Viviane Sassen was born in Amsterdam but lived in a Kenyan village from the ages of two to five while her father worked at a hospital. Flamboya contains photographs she made in Africa between 2003 and 2006. In a short text accompanying an exhibition featuring this work, she wrote:

'Flamboya' refers to the 'Flamboyant' tree which blossoms in December and spatters the landscape across East and South Africa with countless deep red-and-orange flowers. Yet, maybe this name constitutes the sole remaining concession and reference to an exotic image of Africa in the history of a body of work that otherwise helps challenging this enduring conception. Shot in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia, the Flamboya photographs are an attempt to recapture my childhood years in Africa, yet they also pose implicit fundamental questions about image, bias and the constraints of the photographic medium.'