These fine photographs were part of a series of ethnographic postcards that French anthropologist Bernard Koechlin printed in order to sell them in Male in 1982. He sent me a first batch of 200, but I soon realized that no one was interested in them. These pictures and their subject didn’t correspond with the image Maldivians sought of themselves at that time. Koechlin wanted Maldivians to become interested in their own culture, but he died in 2007 without seeing any success in his endeavor. At that time Maldivians didnt like these postcards because they claimed the subject made them look retrogressive, not modern. Others complained that the images advertised the fact that Maldivian women wore their head uncovered, a tradition they wished to erase for being ‘unislamic’. Meanwhile tourists favored pictures of lagoons, coconut palms and white beaches. In the end the almost intact batch of unsold postcards was returned to me and I sent it back to him. I am very grateful to Hervé Thomas for having brought these pictures back from oblivion.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 02:02:25 +0000
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