Welcome to the Haffner Collection
Benno Haffner was born on 28 February 1931 in Saarlouis, to Berta, Petronella Immaculata Haffner and Aloys Haffner. As oldest of three sons, he spent his childhood and schooling in Saarlouis, where he received a humanistic secondary education. Studies in Munich and then in Aachen led him, in 1958, to earn a Degree in Civil Engineering.
Growing up in the Saarland at the corner of 3 countries (Dreiländereck) Germany, France and Luxembourg was formative to shaping his idea of cross border cooperation. Benno Haffner started his professional career in Africa where he was responsible for the technical assistance of EC financed development cooperation projects in the republic of Niger. In 1963 he married Frauke Eckel and out of this strong union were born three daughters: Christine, Susanne, Marianne.
He dedicated his career to development cooperation in Sub Saharan Africa with engagement for the poor and poorest, sometimes in conflict and disaster ridden countries where he headed the European Commission representations in Niger, Somalia, Burkina Faso Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Mauritius.
Exhibition
In the wake of its artistic, educational and multicultural missions, La Chambre Galerie offers with this exhibition a glimpse of the singular collection of Benno Haffner and his daughter Christine Haffner Sifakis consisting of a selection of incongruous and curious but above all fascinating traditional objects, both in terms of form and iconography and in terms of their anthropological and cultural interest. Indeed, most of these objects have never before been studied or shown to the public.
These include guardian and fertility statues, various female figures, dance masks, zoomorphic headdresses, as well as everyday objects such as Dogon chairs and doors, Ashanti containers and weights and Mossi and Akwaba dolls. There is also a lot of femininity in the exhibition with various figures (women’s masks, great ancestors, dolls, goddesses, etc.).
In the middle of this collection, the artist Mireille Asia Nyembo revisits the relationships established by tradition in a photographic series that update this ancestral and multiple heritage. This exhibition is conceived as a celebration, a tribute to the ancestors, a meeting between two women, two stories, two experiences; an initiatory look at the thresholds of the visible.
It is a unique opportunity to look at the roots and deep traditions of these cultures that are often little known.