A World in Common

A celebration of the visual and cultural landscape of contemporary African photography, which offers 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 book 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. Bringing 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, it reveals how innovative contemporary photography challenges perceptions of history, culture and identity.

BIOGRAPHY
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 (2022).
Nomusa Makhubu is an art historian, artist and associate professor of art history and visual culture at the University of Cape Town's Michaelis School of Fine Art. In 2020, she featured on Apollo Magazine's '40 under 40 Africa'.
Jennifer Bajorek is a scholar and curator working at the intersection of literature, art, and media, with a geographic focus on contemporary Africa.
She is currently Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Visual Studies at Hampshire College.
Emmanuel Iduma is a Nigerian writer, editor, and photographer. Iduma is author of the novel The Sound of Things to Come (2016) and the non-fiction work A Stranger's Pose (2018). In 2020, he was listed in Apollo International Art Magazine's 40 under 40 Africa for the broad social impact of his work. He received a Windham-Campbell Prize for Literature (Non-fiction) in 2022.
Sandrine Colard is Assistant Professor of Art History at Rutgers University- Newark, a writer and an independent curator. She specialises in modern and contemporary African arts and photography, with a focus on Central Africa.