Bullinger, Winfried: Pastoralist Homes

This book is Winfried Bullinger‘s extensive photographic archive of vernacular architecture from Eastern and Central Africa. A long-term project Bullinger has dedicated himself to since 2008, his portraits of African pastoralists‘ diverse homes—including tents, open dwellings and huts—preserve indigenous architectural traditions that have been largely overlooked in the post-colonial era and are today threatened by changing ways of life. His images, each made with a large-format camera and the silver-gelatin technique, are born from a dialogue with the inhabitants and reveal architecture as a direct response, refined over centuries, to a people‘s specific environment and culture. Despite their variety, the structures are all made from materials available directly on site: renouncing anything superficial, they are radically efficient and sustainable. Bullinger‘s vision has echoes of Bernd and Hilla Becher‘s systematic approach to photographing architectural types, yet his focus is solely on architecture as dwelling. Although (with few exceptions) no inhabitants are to be seen in his images, Bullinger records their many traces; his camera perspective is shaped by how they use and view their homes; and he rejects ideal lighting for the unpredictable changing light of day. The result is a valuable record of rapidly disappearing African architectural heritage.