Imaging Blackness

Over the years, Thandiwe Muriu has developed a particular interest in showcasing Africa’s unique mix of vibrant cultures, colour and people. In her CAMO series, she celebrates her African heritage and tackles important social issues such as identity and self-perception using the rich colours and vibrancy the continent is so well know for.

The series’ title is a play on how the subject of each image camouflages into the background – a commentary on how easy it is for the individual to lose their identity to culture. Initially the series began as a way to appreciate African textiles and beauty, but grew to focus on exploring the African identity and what makes each individual uniquely beautiful. The textiles in the images act as a backdrop on which the artist celebrates her culture.

Adrian Octavius Walker is a mixed-media artist based in Chicago, IL, by way of St. Louis, MO. His work is inspired by the Black body, dynamics of the Black family and archival work related to the African American experience and the untold stories they share. Working in both film and digital-format photography, Walker creates penetrating portraits influenced by his deep awareness of the nuances that pervade the human experience.

His greatest milestone to date is being one of the prize-winning artists in The Outwin: American Portraiture Today at the National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. with his series ‘We Matter’, featuring portraits of Black men wearing various colours of velvet durags. The portraits are soft, stylised and empowering, breaking the stereotypes of Black masculinity often presented in popular media with bold, poppy and pastel colours.

Bevan Agyemang is a London-based visual artist and designer, originally from Ghana. He uses different mediums within his work, which is centred around the layers of constructed identity, and rooted in his interests in cultural studies and anthropology. Beginning as a street photographer, Agyemang studied our natural human behaviours and how we make sense of the world around us. He began to depict himself as characters who were influenced by a combination of his parents’ old photographs from the 1960s through to the 1980s and his immediate environment at the time.

By using his own body to communicate these stories, his works are grounded in his own personal exploration of his parents’ diasporic journey, African history and the construct of identity. Agyemang’s work across the fashion landscape is powered by his documentary approach and the local community. Engaging with his local environment and taking the time to have genuine conversations with the people within it are key.

Aïcha Fall Nadaud is an Ivorian and French self-taught photographer whose practice explores and forges links between her personal identity and culture. Her art practice uses photography and sculpture to explore stories about femininity, beauty, representation, and celebration of Black bodies.

Fall Nadaud harnesses the narrative power of photography in order to inspire her audiences through a demonstration of the medium’s ability to affect change in the world. As both an African woman and a graduate in African studies, she embraces the responsibility of representing her continent, heritage and community.

Delphine Diallo is a Brooklyn-based French and Senegalese visual artist and photographer. Seeking to challenge the norms of our society, she immerses herself in the realm of anthropology, mythology, religion, science and martial arts to release her mind. Her work takes her to remote areas, as she insists on spending intimate time with her subjects to better represent their most innate energy.

“I treat my process as if it were an adventure, liberating a new protagonist,” explains the artist. Diallo’s powerful portraitures unmask and stir an uninhibited insight that allows her audience to see beyond the facade. “We are in constant search for wonder and growth. I see art as a vessel to express consciousness and an access to diffuse wisdom, enlightenment, fear, beauty, ugliness, mystery, faith, strength, fearless, universal matter.”

Djibril Drame is a Senegalese visual artist, filmmaker, curator and independent scholar who strives to shed light on socially relevant and slightly controversial issues affecting our world today. His work reflects the many aspects of Africa’s multifaceted history and innumerable intertwined cultures, offering an alternative African narrative. Commonly known amongst his peers as ‘Gadaay/GodEye’, Drame seeks to portray communities around the world through his photographic lens, to provide insights into worlds that are often unseen and overlooked.

In the past few years, Drame has also been heavily involved in film and has released two short movies which have gone on to feature in festivals and art tours internationally. He has curated art shows throughout Africa and North America, including the Afro Music Festival held in Los Angeles. He holds a degree in Journalism, Communication and Public Relations and earned a certificate in Art Curation from Independent Curators International, an organisation based in New York. He is also a pioneer in graffiti art in Africa.

Joel Palmer is a British POC and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, who specialises in photography, creative direction, movement and styling, all of which has been influenced by his years spent training in the performing arts. His surreal and otherworldly images convey universal themes of freedom, empowerment and inner strength – at the heart of which lies his interest in the role that the photographer plays during pivotal moments in history and culture.

Palmer’s work and artistic output is dedicated to raising awareness and amplifying the voices of POC and LGBTQ+ artists in fashion, film, music and performance, always aiming to produce visuals that inspire by blending extreme beauty with raw humanity.

Yannis Davy Guibinga is a photographer from Libreville, Gabon, currently based in Montréal, Canada. In order to contribute to a change in the narrative about the continent, he has found in photography a strength and a tool allowing him to not only celebrate but also to document and represent the many cultures and identities on the African continent and its diaspora.

Guibinga has worked with clients such as Apple, Nikon & Adobe and has exhibited works internationally in England, South Africa, Nigeria, France, Russia, Qatar, Switzerland and more, as well as featured on platforms such as  CNN Africa, Document Journal, I-D, Harper’s Bazaar Russia, Condé Nast Traveler and more.

John Baloyi is a photographer and visual artist based in Johannesburg. His work seeks to document the unique experience of Black people through surreal and Afrocentric lens with the intention to portray people of colour as works of art. His themes aim to evoke an alternative view of people of colour to educate and change the subjects’ perspective of themselves.

Baloyi’s work as a photographer began in 2017 when he left his employment as an Automotive Electrician. He began by assisting a variety of photographers in order to familiarise himself with the industry, which led to him shooting commercial work for various brands and campaigns. Since picking up a camera, Baloyi has collaborated with an array of brands such as Adidas, Adobe, Levi’s and Bombay Sapphire.

Kenny Germé is a photographer born in Martinique and based in Paris. He refers to himself as a “visual storyteller”, drawing inspiration from his Carribbean roots as well as punk, jazz, and hip hop culture. “I don’t consider myself to be a fashion photographer – it is just the medium that I like to use. Over everything else, I am a storyteller,” he says. “As a community we are so saturated with images and so, for me, it is important to create emotion, composition and narrative within the images I take and not participate in the mass of thoughtless pictures being captured everyday with your phone.”

Working at the confluence of fashion photography and classical portraiture, young Nigerian photographer Lakin Ogunbanwo creates enigmatic portraits with an erotic and subversive undertone. His subjects exist defiantly in the frame, often masked by shadow, drapery and foliage. His use of vibrant flat colour and bold compositions form a more minimalist homage to the African studio photography popular in the 1960s and 70s.

Central to Ogunbanwo’s artistic investigation is his desire to document the culture of Nigeria’s capital Lagos, expand the contemporary African visual archive and portray self-represented African narratives. He documents the complexity of his culture using veiled portraiture and fashion as a cultural signifier and ,in doing so, counteracts the West’s monolithic gaze on Africa.

Maganga Mwagogo is a self-taught photographer based in Nairobi, Kenya and working around Africa. His work is chiefly interested in celebrating the achievements of African people and challenging the portrayal of African people by non-African societies. He employs strong stances and vibrant colours in his imagery as a means to elevate his subjects to hero status and directly engage with the optimistic notion of a prosperous African society.

In 2018, Mwagogo took part in To Revolutionary Type Love, a group exhibition celebrating love in the lives of the diverse Kenyan spectrum of LGBTQIA+. His work has been featured in publications including Vogue, Nataal, WIRED, Not African Enough, Architectural Digest, and Phaidon amongst others.

Marcus Maddox is a photographer living and working in Philadelphia, PA. His work is characterised by a natural tone, guided by intuition and empathy. He became interested in making images whilst growing up in Nashville, TN, getting his start by observing local musicians. Drawn towards the personal, Maddox sets out to capture the human condition in a meaningful and cinematic way.

Maddox’s work has appeared in select publications including The New Yorker, NPR, American Chordata, Atmos Magazine, Wire Magazine, She Shreds Magazine, The FADER, New York Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine, The Independent Photographer, and The New York Times.

Ngadi Smart is a Sierra Leonean visual artist and designer based between London, UK and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.  Her practice consists of illustration, photography and design. She also works as a mixed media artist, primarily in the form of collage art. In her photography, Smart’s focus is documenting cultures, subcultures and intimacy. Her work often speaks on how people self-identify and choose to present themselves in front of the lens.

Recently, Smart has also been interested in documenting Black sensuality and culture from an African point of view. She aims to showcase a myriad of representations of African people, and what it means to be African. Her photography has been published on CNN, British Journal of Photography, Vogue Italia, Atmos Magazine, and I.D Magazine.

Reece T. Williams is a New-York based photographer, writer, audio and video producer interested in telling stories about culture as expressed through traditions, rituals, and art forms. Williams was born in the Parkway Gardens section of Greenburgh, NY. The son of the folk taken from their homeland and brought to the Caribbean and the American South, Williams is interested in photographing people, their histories, and their myriad expressions of culture. He loves talking to people about where they’re from, and what that means.

Aindrea Emelife is an acclaimed curator, art critic and art historian from London. Starting at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she completed a BA in History of Art, she has quickly gone on to become a groundbreaking new voice in the art world, delivering talks and lectures at UNESCO, The Times, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum, amongst others.