Paper short abstract:

In "Unseen on Screen," I examine the absent but ever-present arts of Komo in Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé's international award-winning film _Yeelen_ (1987). Cissé maintains strictures against seeing arts central to Komo but still conveys their importance to the organization.

Paper long abstract:

Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé's international award-winning film _Yeelen_ (1987) centers on the rivalry between a member of a Komo power association and his son. Members of Komo and other West African power associations are specialists who develop expert knowledge of tangible materials and intangible energies over vast interpersonal networks. They use this knowledge to control criminal behavior, address daily concerns, and help individuals achieve certain goals. Since at least the end of the nineteenth century, power associations across the region have also sponsored elaborate assemblages, installations, and performances, including masquerades. The organizations' leaders have used these arts to engage audiences, advertise expertise, and attract clients without fully disclosing restricted knowledge. They have controlled when and where certain people can see their arts. They have also prohibited viewing for others. In _Yeelen_, Cissé explores themes of power, knowledge, and competition central to Komo and other rural power associations. He also refers to but never explicitly shows examples of arts associated with Komo that observers have documented for more than a century. In this presentation, I demonstrate that the arts of Komo are absent but ever-present in Cissé's film. Cissé thus maintains strictures against seeing arts central to Komo but still conveys their importance to the organization.