Assistant Professor of History Elizabeth Jacob and collaborator Ananias Léki Dago, an Ivorian professional photographer, recently won a project grant from UCLA’s Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) to digitize the personal archive of Paul Kodjo, who is widely considered the “father of Ivorian photography.” In 2008, Kodjo conferred his collection to Léki Dago. Since then, Dago has worked to restore and preserve the Kodjo archive which documents the first decades of Ivorian independence.
The 2022 documentary Je reste photographe, directed by Léki Dago with an all-African team, narrates his early efforts to preserve Kodjo’s archive. With the support of the MEAP, Léki Dago and Professor Jacob can begin the process of digitizing this physical collection to make it accessible to the widest possible audience.
More information about the digitization project is included below.
Imagining Ivorian Independence: The Photographic Archive of Paul Kodjo
The archive of Paul Kodjo (1939-2021), considered the “father of Ivorian photography,” records the first decades of independence in Ivory Coast. Documenting the “Ivorian miracle,” a period of rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s, the collection features photographs of young women and men as they navigated everyday life in the capital city of Abidjan. The images include fashion, nightlife, and street photography, as well as stills from his photoromans, or comics that use photographs in lieu of illustrations. The collection also includes Kodjo’s journalistic work documenting the travels of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the first president of Ivory Coast, as well as press clippings and correspondence. This project will digitize approximately 3,500 photographs and personal ephemera from the Kodjo archive.
The Kodjo archive significantly contributes to our understanding of Ivorian history and culture. Kodjo’s photographs of street scenes and vibrant nightlife illustrate the impact of the economic boom on ordinary Ivorians and highlight the shifting social and gender norms of the period. The images depict a society in flux, negotiating the tensions between local traditions and cosmopolitan modernities. In light of the 1980s economic downturn, Ivorians today harbor considerable nostalgia for the optimism of the independence era. Few, however, have engaged with its photographic legacy. Fewer still recognize the name Paul Kodjo, despite his near ubiquity in 1970s print media. The vast majority of Kodjo’s works have long been unavailable for popular consumption.
Since the 1990s, Ivory Coast has struggled with periods of social and political unrest, most notably during the civil crises of 2002–7 and 2010–11. Over the course of these conflicts, many archives and cultural institutions have been either defunded or destroyed. By digitizing the Kodjo archive and making it available to all Ivorians—both at home and throughout the diaspora—we hope not only to contribute to the reconstruction of Ivorian collective memory, but also to ongoing projects for national reconciliation.