ZAM reporter
The South African artist was announced as the winner of the prestigious Börsche Prize at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on May 15. The influential prize, held in partnership with the Deutsche Börsche Photography Foundation, recognises artists and their projects that have made the most significant contribution to international contemporary photography over the past 12 months. Lindokuhle Sobekwa (b. 1995, South Africa) was awarded the Prize for his book I Carry Her Photo with Me , published by... The South African artist was announced as the winner of the prestigious Börsche Prize at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on May 15. The influential...
ZAM reporter
Charles Badoue (Ivory Coast, 1987) and Harrison Omoyater (Nigeria, 1994) both fled their home countries. “Art is a remedy for loss and pain.” “Memories of where I grew up slipped out of my mind,” Charles Badoue says in a video accompanying the exhibition he takes part in. While bright colours help mask a dark past, bringing light into the darkness, his paintings also bring repressed memories back to life. A violent conflict in which 800 people died forced him to flee. It was “a massacre by our own... Charles Badoue (Ivory Coast, 1987) and Harrison Omoyater (Nigeria, 1994) both fled their home countries. “Art is a remedy for loss and pain.” “Memories...
ZAM Reporter
By documenting life in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, the photographer explores grief through art. In Unyọñ Ufọk , Emily Nkanga explores grief, identity, and home. Through analog photographs, Nkanga captures fleeting moments of everyday life in her hometown of Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. The images act as a time capsule, preserving the beauty of life’s transient moments. The project began in January 2021, when Nkanga returned home for her father’s burial. After living in the UK for more than seven years, she was... By documenting life in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, the photographer explores grief through art. In Unyọñ Ufọk , Emily Nkanga explores grief, identity, and home....
ZAM reporter
A new exhibition in Paris celebrates the presence and influence of 150 Black artists in France between the 1950s and 2000. To those familiar with the Présence Africaine Review and Revue Noire , Gerard Sekoto, Wilson Tibério, Ben Enwonwu, or Ernest Mancoba are household names. However, their artistic creations have hardly been on display in France before. And this goes for most of the works by the 150 artists now represented at the Centre Pompidou. Sekoto’s 1946 self-portrait has become the face of... A new exhibition in Paris celebrates the presence and influence of 150 Black artists in France between the 1950s and 2000. To those familiar with the...
ZAM Reporter
What happened to the Bangwa Queen, the Benin Kingdom’s Okukor, the Namibian Ekori, and the Cullinan Diamond? In its first edition of 2025, the weekly online magazine The Continent profiled eight historical artefacts from every corner of Africa. This remarkable archive of colonial theft has now been brought together in a special edition of the magazine, curated by journalist and filmmaker Shola Lawal. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration, commissioned by art director Wynonba Mutisi.... What happened to the Bangwa Queen, the Benin Kingdom’s Okukor, the Namibian Ekori, and the Cullinan Diamond? In its first edition of 2025, the weekly...
ZAM reporter
Artist Eileen Perrier argues that a person is a person beyond social and cultural divides. In her exhibition a thousand small stories , she beautifully pieces them together. In her work, she has always used photographic portraiture to forge connections between people, acknowledging the profound value of being seen. Often creating makeshift studios, she brings her sitters together around shared experiences of kinship, interests, or place. Her work has evolved into a form of social engagement that... Artist Eileen Perrier argues that a person is a person beyond social and cultural divides. In her exhibition a thousand small stories , she beautifully...
ZAM Reporter
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates the myriad ways in which artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined, positioned, memorialised and asserted African and African-descent experiences. It contributes to the critical discourse on African and Black liberation, intellectual and philosophical movements. The title of the exhibition... A Century of Black Figuration in Painting brings together artworks from the past 100 years in a dialogue between artists and thinkers around the world....
Noah Anton Schmitt
A wind of change is sweeping through Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where the recently announced renaming of French colonial-era streets marks part of a broader movement. The new government, led by former opposition activists President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, signals a political rupture and systemic transformation—both in relation to the former colonial power, France, and in domestic affairs. Amid these shifts, Dakar pulses as a hub of new ideas, driven by the ambition to... A wind of change is sweeping through Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where the recently announced renaming of French colonial-era streets marks part of a...
Kwazokuhle Phakathi & Michelle Loukidis, TOMBE magazine
There’s something happening in Algeria. A spark of curiosity has been ignited and a community of photographers are emerging with different perspectives and questions on nationalism, tradition and the lived experiences of the people who exist within the country bordered by the Mediterranean Sea. Award-winning photographer, Abdo Shanan - who was born in the Algerian city of Oran to a Sudanese father and an Algerian mother, partially raised in Libya before later returning to Algeria in his twenties -... There’s something happening in Algeria. A spark of curiosity has been ignited and a community of photographers are emerging with different perspectives...
ZAM Reporter
Humans adapt, move and connect. Environments change, landscapes can be challenging, and infrastructure is expected to support it all. An exhibition, on view only for one day at the 5th edition of the ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture on February 16 in Amsterdam, gets into testing the relationship between humans, environment and infrastructure as climate change worsens, affecting those who are on the periphery -the vulnerable- the most. The beautiful Western Cape in South Africa is a home to incredible... Humans adapt, move and connect. Environments change, landscapes can be challenging, and infrastructure is expected to support it all. An exhibition, on...
ZAM Reporter
The Amsterdam Open Space Contemporary Art Museum (OSCAM), dedicated to art, fashion, design, craftsmanship, and development, will unveil its inaugural exhibition, What's the 411: STRANDS & STRUCTURES , curated by Esmeralda Tan, on Saturday, 22 February, from 19:00 to 22:00 hrs. The What's the 411 series celebrates the vibrant diaspora community in Accra, Ghana. STRANDS & STRUCTURES , the third edition in the series, is a photo-documentary exhibition created by multidisciplinary hair artist Asia... The Amsterdam Open Space Contemporary Art Museum (OSCAM), dedicated to art, fashion, design, craftsmanship, and development, will unveil its inaugural...
Pieter van der Houwen
In a new documentary, now showing in Dutch cinemas, Raoul Peck creates a space for the South African photographer to tell his own story. Raoul Peck is one of the world’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers. Since the 1970s, he has created socially engaged films on subjects that are as critical as they are diverse—ranging from the death of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba (Lumumba, Death of a Prophet) , to the Rwanda genocide (Sometimes in April) , the friendship between Marx and Engels (The Young... In a new documentary, now showing in Dutch cinemas, Raoul Peck creates a space for the South African photographer to tell his own story. Raoul Peck is...
ZAM Reporter
Thembeka Heidi Sincuba’s forthcoming exhibition Umngqwambo at the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) in Cape Town (16 January - 27 February 2025) presents a reimagining of African initiation rites and the interstitial spaces between memory, transformation, and the body. Through an evocative interplay of oil painting, installation, and video, Sincuba constructs a sensory landscape that interrogates the deep tensions between tradition and modernity, the individual and the collective, the sacred and... Thembeka Heidi Sincuba’s forthcoming exhibition Umngqwambo at the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) in Cape Town (16 January - 27 February 2025) presents...
ZAM Reporter
Congratulations Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi and Sana Na N’Hada, two of six winners of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award! Va-Bene is a multidisciplinary artivist and curator from Ghana. She is also a transwoman in a country where the LGBTQIA+ community faces significant challenges. Sana Na H’Hada, from Guinea-Bissau is a filmmaker. Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi , known as crazinisT artisT, is a multidisciplinary artivist, curator, mentor, and philanthropist from Ghana. Raised in a deeply religious community, she... Congratulations Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi and Sana Na N’Hada, two of six winners of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Award! Va-Bene is a multidisciplinary...
ZAM Reporter
An increasing number of African stand-up comedians are touring Europe and the US, often satirising misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa and Africans still prevalent in many Western minds. South African Trevor Noah has become an established international celebrity, but others, such as Noah’s fellow South African Loyiso Gola, Captain Khalid from Tanzania, Learnmore Jonasi from Zimbabwe, and Maira Santos from Mozambique, are rapidly joining him in claiming the world’s stages. These comedians... An increasing number of African stand-up comedians are touring Europe and the US, often satirising misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa and...
ZAM Reporter
Breyten Breytenbach (1939 - 2024) The South African poet, writer, and visual artist passed away in Paris on Sunday, 24 November 2024. A video of his poem Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan was produced as part of the ATKV Filmverse Project, with music by Laurinda Hofmeyer. The video includes English subtitles. Ek sal sterf en na my vader gaan Wellington toe met lang bene blink in die lig waar die kamers swaar en donker is waar sterre soos seemeeue sit op die nok en engele vir wurms spit in die tuin,... Breyten Breytenbach (1939 - 2024) The South African poet, writer, and visual artist passed away in Paris on Sunday, 24 November 2024. A video of his poem...
Ngadi Smart
The impact of climate change is devastating but communities find ways of surviving despite corruption and governmental planning. Wata Na Life (Krio for ‘Water is Life’), is a phrase photographer Ngadi Smart heard time and again in Sierra Leone, a country where water is very much a currency. Smart spent three months in the country of her heritage in 2021 exploring the link between water and our changing climate. What she found were communities adapting as best they could to the fall-out from a... The impact of climate change is devastating but communities find ways of surviving despite corruption and governmental planning. Wata Na Life (Krio for...
ZAM Reporter
Amsterdam, November 2024 Onlangs verschenen: The Complicit Camera [English text below] Zodra een foto het publieke domein betreedt, lijken de oorspronkelijke intenties van de maker uit het zicht te verdwijnen. Zo ontstaat een beeldeconomie, meer dan een beeldcultuur. En die cultuur wordt nog steeds gedomineerd door witte en westerse percepties. De verbeelding van het Afrikaanse continent is een ‘goed’ voorbeeld van veelvuldige vertekening. In het fotoboek The Complicit Camera onderwerpt Pieter van... Amsterdam, November 2024 Onlangs verschenen: The Complicit Camera [English text below] Zodra een foto het publieke domein betreedt, lijken de...
Riason Naidoo / Africa is a Country
In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging. While her mother earned a living as a domestic worker in Johannesburg, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi was raised in the countryside by her grandmother, from whom she learned the traditional crafts of mural painting and pyro engraving of calabashes. As a teenager... In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential...
ZAM Reporter
This exhibition features (diasporic) artists from Somaliland telling their own story, unobscured by a colonial gaze. The Anarchist Citizenship: People Made of Stories explores the possibilities of visual storytelling, imagination, and self-determination. In doing so, it offers an alternative approach to understanding this self-declared independent region of Somalia. It places the agency of Somali(land) people at the centre. As a result, we are presented with an approach that overrides Eurocentric... This exhibition features (diasporic) artists from Somaliland telling their own story, unobscured by a colonial gaze. The Anarchist Citizenship: People...
Olivia Hingley / It's Nice That
Both tender and melancholic, the French-Cameroonian photographer series interrogates the ideas of love. Naam Na La , takes its name from the Wolof expression which translates to "I long for you". “Love is undeniably common and universal, but also overused and overrepresented in our visual cultures,” begins the photographer Charlotte Yonga. “As a feeling, it’s capable of great amplitude and density, but also exists in its deficiencies, flaws, ambiguities and vanities.” With these musings in mind,... Both tender and melancholic, the French-Cameroonian photographer series interrogates the ideas of love. Naam Na La , takes its name from the Wolof...