Why choose to take a photograph of an enfilade of archways? If the path leads anywhere the picture says little of what’s on the other end. Only that, without doubt, this pathway was built to allow passage. Hence it is at once a picture of the state of these archways as it is of a time now past. What might it seem like, then, to come to terms with the knowledge held in those cracks and blotches—to see through the multitude of feet for whom, as they approached this threshold, an elsewhere was possible?
— Emmanuel Iduma, Tender Photo
— Emmanuel Iduma, Tender Photo
Every week the writer Emmanuel Iduma features one photograph and the photographer who took it in his African photography newsletter Tender Photo. Photographers are invited to respond to their image plus there’s a short introductory note from the editor. Emmanuel hopes to reach readers willing to give some thought to how photography impacts their lives and shapes their perceptions.
︎︎︎ Tender Photo
︎︎︎ Tender Photo
CAP Prize 2024, shortlist
The Contemporary African Photography Prize
A portfolio of 15 images from my Through Monuments project has been shortlisted for the CAP prize, which has been awarded annually since 2012 for works created on the African continent, or which engage with the African diaspora.
The Contemporary African Photography Prize
A portfolio of 15 images from my Through Monuments project has been shortlisted for the CAP prize, which has been awarded annually since 2012 for works created on the African continent, or which engage with the African diaspora.
Postcards for Palestine
A set of screenshots sourced from 360° imagery uploaded to Google Maps from locations inside Gaza. Designed as postcards for the fundraising initiative Postcards for Palestine: a collective call to action aimed at providing support to the children and civilians affected by the devastating Gaza siege. Each image is accompanied by embedded data, such as the GPS coordinates and the name or alias of the original content creator.
While searching on Google Maps, I became interested in censored or erased information and how - through a lens of what is currently unfolding in the region - these glitches and digital artefacts evoke a sense of a territory and a people appearing to be wiped off the map. In a crisis-related message indicating the scale of destruction, the following warning appears alongside many of the locations:
! Info alert
Information about this place may be outdated. Always pay attention to real-world conditions, which may be rapidly changing
A set of screenshots sourced from 360° imagery uploaded to Google Maps from locations inside Gaza. Designed as postcards for the fundraising initiative Postcards for Palestine: a collective call to action aimed at providing support to the children and civilians affected by the devastating Gaza siege. Each image is accompanied by embedded data, such as the GPS coordinates and the name or alias of the original content creator.
While searching on Google Maps, I became interested in censored or erased information and how - through a lens of what is currently unfolding in the region - these glitches and digital artefacts evoke a sense of a territory and a people appearing to be wiped off the map. In a crisis-related message indicating the scale of destruction, the following warning appears alongside many of the locations:
! Info alert
Information about this place may be outdated. Always pay attention to real-world conditions, which may be rapidly changing
In a statement, the organisers of Postcards for Palestine have said "While we condemn the attacks by Hamas on October 7th 2023 in the strongest possible terms, we emphatically believe that the unprecedented bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent children and civilians is not the path to a solution – history did not begin on 7th October, and nor will it end when Gaza has been razed to the ground."
Set of 4 postcards
105 x 148mm
Pigment prints on bamboo paper
Set of 4 postcards
105 x 148mm
Pigment prints on bamboo paper
Hariban Award 2023, Honourable Mention
Through Monuments (Namibia)
Postcolonial Southern Africa is a place that enacts a continuous tension between its architectural constructions, its natural surroundings and the weight of racist historical ideologies. Through memorials, monuments, sites of cultural significance and other commemorative topologies, these photographs ruminate on these tensions within a contemporary Namibian context. Where in the drylands of this sparsely populated region, heritage sites are rendered indistinct by the shifting tides of dust and sandstorms.
Forming a subset within the broader Through Monuments project (2019-ongoing), which expands to include the entangled histories of South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the work explores how collective memory is expressed through overlapping material cultures. This chapter focuses on the railway lines that serviced diamond mining towns and military outposts, together with the area known as the Skeleton Coast, where shipwrecks, defunct oil rigs and other ruins lie strewn across the Namib Desert.
Sculptural interventions serve to disrupt a traditional narrative-based reading. Improvised and playful, these assemblages are simple exercises where found artefacts are underpropped, leaned against or hung. They evolved from the notion that memorialised heritage is undergoing a process of being redressed and transformed. Though humble on the surface, these artefacts are as inextricably linked to the material culture of European extractivism in Africa as any statue or structure. Perhaps as the importance of intangible heritage and oral histories challenge the role of monuments, it allows for physical structures and objects to undergo a process of being questioned, where material properties and design are potential subjects for artistic re-interpretation.
Through Monuments (Namibia)
Postcolonial Southern Africa is a place that enacts a continuous tension between its architectural constructions, its natural surroundings and the weight of racist historical ideologies. Through memorials, monuments, sites of cultural significance and other commemorative topologies, these photographs ruminate on these tensions within a contemporary Namibian context. Where in the drylands of this sparsely populated region, heritage sites are rendered indistinct by the shifting tides of dust and sandstorms.
Forming a subset within the broader Through Monuments project (2019-ongoing), which expands to include the entangled histories of South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the work explores how collective memory is expressed through overlapping material cultures. This chapter focuses on the railway lines that serviced diamond mining towns and military outposts, together with the area known as the Skeleton Coast, where shipwrecks, defunct oil rigs and other ruins lie strewn across the Namib Desert.
Sculptural interventions serve to disrupt a traditional narrative-based reading. Improvised and playful, these assemblages are simple exercises where found artefacts are underpropped, leaned against or hung. They evolved from the notion that memorialised heritage is undergoing a process of being redressed and transformed. Though humble on the surface, these artefacts are as inextricably linked to the material culture of European extractivism in Africa as any statue or structure. Perhaps as the importance of intangible heritage and oral histories challenge the role of monuments, it allows for physical structures and objects to undergo a process of being questioned, where material properties and design are potential subjects for artistic re-interpretation.
In the words of James Baldwin, "As we consider what role monuments play in our culture, it's the historical context, not the mythology, that we must remember." In that spirit, Through Monuments is not grouped following any chronological narrative. Instead, the photographs are sequenced according to the aesthetics of built form, material texture and decorative motif. Thereby encouraging the reading of monuments - not in terms of the events or personalities they purport to represent - but rather as a set of languages that reflect the context from which they emerged.
Presented by Benrido, the Hariban Award combines a 170-year-old analogue technique with contemporary photography. Glass plates have been used as the base for collotype printing plates which still continues today. The award is called “Hariban” as “Hari” means glass plate, and “ban” means printing plate in Japanese.
2023 Jury: Nestan Nijaradze, Rei Masuda, Awoiska van der Molan, Sarah Greene More info ︎︎︎ Hariban Award
Presented by Benrido, the Hariban Award combines a 170-year-old analogue technique with contemporary photography. Glass plates have been used as the base for collotype printing plates which still continues today. The award is called “Hariban” as “Hari” means glass plate, and “ban” means printing plate in Japanese.
2023 Jury: Nestan Nijaradze, Rei Masuda, Awoiska van der Molan, Sarah Greene More info ︎︎︎ Hariban Award