Guy Le Querrec: Lobi

Magnum photographer Guy Le Querrec has shot many stories in Africa. This book is about his work in the territory of the Lobi, an ethnic group from Ghana, living in Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. It features work documenting ‘last funerals’. From January to April because of the dry season, farming is slowed down. This gives the Lobi ethnic group the opportunity to celebrate the traditional ‘last funerals’. Months after the burial of an elderly person, the wealthiest families organize ‘Second funerals’ to let the soul of the deceased leave the houses and join their ancestors. During several days families and friends gather to dance, drink and make sacrifices.

Through his compositions, in which abstractions, movement, and humor intermingle, he focuses on everyday gestures linking adults and children: celebration rituals, games, and music. He shows, without affect nor exoticism, how the Lobi, while accepting modern changes, have held on to their culture in which numerous spirits, mediating between God and men, take care of social life matters. Faithful to his decisive instinct, Guy Le Querrec captures with fascination a world we wish was immutable.