"As an artist whose primary medium contends with the practice of self portraiture, and who uses the photography studio as an architecture of remembrance, it is an honor to show our film at The Africa Center in Harlem.
This community is a site that has brought us photographers the likes of James Van Der Zee whose practice of memorializing and monumentalizing the everyday quotidian lives of black Harlemites has left a lasting impact on the cultural zeitgeist of Black global diasporas and is very much in conversation with the studio photographs from 1970s and 1990s Somalia and Ethiopia found within the film.
It is my express hope that through this film we are able to forge new connections, new histories and new futures between the Horn of Africa and Harlem, New York City.” - Gouled Ahmed
Except this time nothing returns from the ashes is a short film and exhibition by East African artists Asmaa Jama (United Kingdom/Somalia) and Gouled Ahmed (Ethiopia) opening on June 14, 2024 at The Africa Center.
Inspired by African photography masters such as Samuel Fosso, Malick Sidibé and Seidou Keïta, paralleled with an exploration of Jama and Ahmed’s personal family archives, Except this time nothing returns from the ashes invites viewers through a journey of self-expression, that is at once political and historical, fictional and intimate. Through a poetic narrative, spoken word and music, the work investigates how personal identity and collective narratives are both constructed and corrupted by technologies that determine who is remembered and who is forgotten as the historical cannon is formed.