London – Announcing the winners this Friday (17) during Photo Basel, the aim of the CAP-Prize international contemporary African photography award is to recognize images that depict an Africa very different from traditional landscape and wild animal scenes.
Organized since 2012 by a Switzerland-based nonprofit, the competition rewards artistic and conceptual visions that help rethink the continent’s image and address social issues that concern both its inhabitants and Africans who have immigrated to other parts of the world.
The five 2022 winning works by photographers from Egypt, South Africa, Madagascar and Congo were selected by 18 judges from various countries. Discover the shows and stories that inspired them.
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Three of the award’s photo series show the realities of African women
Dual Identity, Pamela Tulizo, Congo
The first series is a critical look at how the international press represents African communities.
Drawing from the urban reality of Goma and women in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kivu province, Pamela Tulizo produced the series Dupla Identidade with the help of actors, models and dancers.
This identity is anchored in more than 20 years of political instability in North Kivu, based on conflicts over the high concentrations of minerals buried in its soil and its fertility.
Pamela Tulizo laments the “unilateral representation of the international press, NGOs, researchers and artists”.
He claims that the persistent negative approach has had an even more negative impact on people, especially in Goma, leading to a vicious circle in the region and hindering positive development.
“External ideas popularized by the press often show women who are aggrieved.
On the other hand, the images in this drama show more closely how women want to be represented: as proud, beautiful, strong women fighting social injustices.”
Lip Care, Remofiloe Nomandla Maysela, South Africa
Named after one of the series recognized in the CAP Award for African photography, Lip Service is something like “mouthing out,” a statement that means agreeing on something but doing nothing concrete to support the cause.
The series explores the idea behind the famous saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” A phrase that is still very common in a world where women are supposedly liberated.
“Over the years, women have occupied spaces allotted to them by a cultural system that promotes patriarchy. These areas are usually limited to one house. And the most obvious space we have to occupy is the kitchen.”
“Women continue to function as a commodity fetish within a deeply rooted consumer culture, an experience unconstrained by nationality and geography.”
“Comparing women with food is a very popular rhetorical tool, and putting women on the same platform with food makes them look alike. Easy to pick up and enjoy.”
“The traditional clothing I wear is a mix of Western local and indigenous South African clothing, exuding the female body as colonial and cultural property.”
“Based on my experience, as a young modern makoti (the word for bride or bride) in a corporate union such as marriage, I began to question the strong patriarchal cultural attribution of women to kitchens and their bodies for consumption.”
Kakenya’s Dream, Lee-Ann Olwage, South Africa
“Worldwide, 129 million girls are out of school, and only 49% of countries achieve gender parity in primary school and the gap widens in secondary school.”
“Many girls are told from an early age what their life will be like and are not given the opportunity to dream, learn and reach their full potential.
What happens when a supportive environment is created where girls are given the opportunity to dream and grow?”
“For this photo project, I worked with the girls of Kakenya’s Dream, a nonprofit that uses education to empower African girls, end harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage, and transform communities in rural Kenya. ”
“The goal is to create change agents by investing in girls from rural communities through education, health and leadership initiatives, and to create a world where African women and girls are valued and respected as leaders and equals in all aspects.”
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The award was also recognized for a series of photographs that tell regional stories.
Sarotava, Mahefa Dimbiniaina Randrianarivelo, Madagascar
Saroteva, which means mask in Malagasy, is a series of photographs based on a concept: portraits of random people without a head.
“We often judge people by their outward appearance, even unconsciously. This is the main reason why these strange beings don’t have heads.”
“But I want to talk about a certain group of people: the Malagasy. Madagascar is the only country that has remained poor without a war in the last sixty years.
How do you expect the proletariat living on less than $1 a day to think about the current political situation?”
“The plot of this series is about how Malagasy people live.
You feel medieval here, but you have access to all the technology of the modern world. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is upside down.”
“All these people on this show share this story. Catholic, Muslim, heterosexual or homosexual, they are products of the history of this land.”
“You don’t need to meet them in person to know that they’re each doing their best, so there are no heads. And the future of this country depends on these people.”
White Gold, Amina Kadous, Egypt
“The first seeds of my identity were planted in Al Mehalla Al Cobra, my home and also the birthplace of Egyptian cotton.
Seen through my young eyes, my grandfather’s house radiated light and memories reflecting the cotton threads spanning three generations.
My great-grandfather was a silk and wool merchant and one of the first to lead the first phase of the popular textile manufacturing industry of the time in El Mehalla.”
“In the late 1960s, my grandfather set up the textile factory in the city, and in the 1980s my father joined him to continue weaving our family yarns and planting cotton seeds.”
“I see myself reflected in the cotton journey. Drawing on the legacy and archives of my grandparents and the erosion history of my own country, through this photographic work I try to reunite and remember what is left of our own wilted cottonseeds and our cultural richness that connects us to Africa’s historical past. ”
“I discover the blueprints of origin, evolution, erosion, and rebirth. Beneath the layers unfolds the lineage of Egypt, which we have witnessed from the past to the present. What could it be, what could it still be, and what have we lost?”
The winning images of the CAP Award for African photography are published with the permission of the organizers.
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source: Noticias
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