Raphaël Grisey and Bouba Touré

Raphaël Grisey was born in 1979 in France, and lives and works between Berlin and Trondheim in Norway. Bouba Touré was born inMali in 1948 and died in France in January 2022. Raphaël Grisey uses film, editorial and photographic works to address politics of memory, architecture, migration and agriculture. Bouba Touré was a photographic researcher. He studied at Vincennes University and was a projectionist at Cinema 14 Juillet and L’entrepôt, Paris. Photographer since the 1970s, he documented the lives and struggles of migrant workers and peasants in France and Mali. Bouba Touré co-founded the Co-op of Somankidi Coura in 1977. In 2015, he published the book Notre case est à Saint Denis.Since the 1980s, Touré has exhibited works and given talks in associative and foyer’s circles and more recently in art institutions. Touré and Grisey worked together over fifteen years on collaborative projects under the current name of Sowing Somankidi Coura, a Generative Archive. This collaboration led to various workshops, film and theatre production for example with the theatre group Kaddu Yaraax in 2017 and 2019, as well as publications and texts, such asSowing Somankidi Coura, a Generative Archive (2017,Archives Book).

Their residency looks back on the long-time collaboration between Raphaël Grisey and Bouba Touré. Raphaël Grisey will digitize and activate the photographic archive of Bouba Touré. A first complementary indexation work of the archive will be produced by the duo which will then be complemented by partners who will be invited to interpret, refine the indexing, and propose research angles and new contributions. The final production will consist in the production of a sound piece, which will accompany the photographs of Bouba Touré.