African modernity is the result of original combinations that involve a figurative dimension. Hidden beneath the overt forms of domination, there is an ongoing, subtle war of signs. These symbolic conflicts manifest themselves in the stage of modernity as a means of creating ordinary social bonds. The competitive construction of this public space begins from the early moments of African incorporation into European imaginaries, with military campaigns serving as the realization of this soon-to-be colonizing imagination.

Photographic space becomes a part of this silent process of inventing and/or subverting identities, contributing to the marking of social evolution. The photographs are studied here not to showcase exotic postures of indigenous people, characterized as clumsy and innocent, which underlie a certain primitivist aesthetics, but to facilitate a distancing that allows for the observation of the internal dynamics of contemporary African societies. This approach raises significant epistemological issues that challenge the heuristic function of images, imaginations, and imaginaries. Through the medium of images, this book sheds new light on the distinctions, frictions, and strategies of African modernity, which has been the subject of many misinterpretations.