This compelling cloth-bound hardback exhibition book is a celebration of the visual and cultural landscape of contemporary African photography, offering critical insight from the perspectives of Africa's leading artists and thinkers.
Since the invention of photography in the nineteenth century, Africa has been defined largely by Western images of its cultures and traditions. From the colonial carte de visite and ethnographic archive to the rise of studio portraiture and social documents of racial surveillance, the fraught relationship between Africa and the photographic lens has become inseparable from the discourses of post-colonialism.
Challenging these dominant images of exoticism and otherness, this unmissable exhibition catalogue illustrates how photography has allowed artists to reimagine African histories through the lens of the present, to shape our understanding of the contemporary realities we face.
Editor Osei Bonsu brings together a diverse range of artists and thinkers to present varied perspectives on issues such as cultural heritage and restitution, spirituality, urbanism and climate change. Together their contributions explore how innovative contemporary photography challenges perceptions of history, culture and identity.
Osei Bonsu is Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, where he is responsible for organising exhibitions, developing the museum’s collection and broadening the representation of artists from Africa and the African diaspora. In 2020, he was named as one of Apollo Magazine’s ‘40 under 40’ leading African voices. Bonsu is author of African Art Now.
