After Samuel Fosso’s studio and home were attacked by looters in 2014 in the war-torn Central African Republic, the photo-journalists Jérôme Delay and Marcus Bleasdale, with the help of Peter Bouckaert (from the Human Rights Watch organization), rescued Samuel Fosso’s negatives from destruction and sent them back to him, in Paris.For seven years, three steel trunks containing more than 50,000 negatives remained closed, until the spring 2021 when I was given access to them and edited the overlooked treasures.Dedicated to Samuel Fosso’s early studio photographs in the 1980s, this artist book tells the story of photographer Samuel Fosso’s fascinating Bangui studio images, a few decades before his recognition as a major African artist.
