Faces, Voices

Winner of the Best Research Film prize at the Research in Film Awards, 2019. Looking through the photographic archives of Northcote Thomass early twentiethcentury anthropological surveys of Nigeria and Sierra Leone, one gazes upon thousands of faces. Faces of men, women and children, many photographed against a canvas backdrop; all of them silent. What were they thinking as they were being photographed by this Government Anthropologist, perhaps with a number card held above their heads Was the encounter with this pithhelmeted white man, with his entourage of carriers and boxes full of strange equipment, an unpleasant one, or an amusing distraction from everyday chores What can we see in the faces Thomas photographed What can we read in their expressions In Faces, Voices, a short film we have made as part of the Re:Entanglements project, we invited participants to reflect upon some of the faces captured in Thomass photographic portraits and to comment more generally on the significance of these arch