TALK
Rediscovering the Invisible: Counter-Archives and New Narratives from West Africa
by Giulia Brivio in collaboration with Komlan Daniel Agbenonwossi – ITA
Friday 26th June h. 7.00 pm
There are invisible archives: locked in boxes, passed down orally, or suspended within undeveloped negatives. What obstacles hinder the rediscovery and valorisation of counter-archives in formerly colonised countries? What kind of interest do new generations of West African artists show toward these materials? Together with the Harmattan Togo Photo Festival collective, we reflect on practices that move beyond the very idea of the archive, opening up new first-person narratives. And what happens, in editorial and exhibition contexts, when representing other histories?
Giulia Brivio
Giulia Brivio is a curator, editor, and producer specialising in artist books and photobooks. In 2025, she co-founded the Togo Photo Festival in Lomé. Since 2013, she has been working as book editor and curator for Artphilein in Lugano. In 2009, she co-founded Studio Boîte, a publishing house and research platform focused on editorial practices. She has taught Editorial Design at NABA in Milan. She also worked as project manager for the residency programme Volcano Extravaganza in Stromboli and was responsible for the Italian Artists Archive at Viafarini DOCVA.
Komlan Daniel Agbenonwossi
Komlan Daniel Agbenonwossi is a Togolese curator and art critic. A former programme director at the Paul Ahyi Museum in Lomé, he now develops an independent curatorial practice. At the heart of this practice lies a question: how can one tell their story from a territory without betraying themselves?
In 2023, he served as guest curator at the AKAA (Also Known As Africa) fair in Paris. A laureate of the KreAfrika program (Université Senghor / AFD), he engages with the conditions under which contemporary artistic and intellectual heritage is produced, preserved, and circulated across the African continent and its diasporas.
For him, the archive is not a neutral tool. It is a political act. An ethical responsibility, at once intimate and collective.