Photography

Dr Tunde Alabi-Hundeyin II is a documentary filmmaker and media creative whose work interrogates culture, identity, power, and social justice and a Creative in Residence at FLIA. He holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Practice from the University of Sussex. His acclaimed films and photo exhibitions have been showcased globally, inspiring new conversations about African agency, ethical storytelling, and the power of photography and film as tools for advocacy. Here, he lists five African photographers whose work deserve your attention.

Malick Sidibé: Youth, Freedom and the Making of Modern Bamako

Malick Sidibé’s photographs make post-colonial Bamako immediate: youth dancing, dressing, and inventing modern identities. From the kinetic nightlife of Surprise Party to posed studio portraits and Vues de dos, his black-and-white images unite documentary intimacy with graphic elegance. Sidibé transformed how Africa pictured itself and was seen globally. His influence endures across visual culture and pedagogy; his work is held in MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Getty. In 2007, he became the first African and the first photographer awarded the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

James Barnor: Accra, London and an Ever-Young Archive

Across studio portraiture, street photography, photojournalism and fashion, James Barnor made modernity visible on both sides of Britain’s colonial relationship with Ghana. His warm-toned, elegantly composed images caught Accra approaching independence and a London becoming unmistakably multicultural in the 1950s and 1960s, affirming Black beauty, confidence and style. He later established Ghana’s first colour-processing laboratory. Though Nana Oforiatta Ayim brought his archive wider recognition in 2007 at the age of 79, its historical power had accumulated for decades. Now held by MoMA, Tate, and Musée du quai Branly, Barnor’s photographs remain ever young: an intergenerational record that has outlived fashion, delayed recognition and time itself.

Aida Muluneh: Colour, Memory and the African Future

Aida Muluneh transforms photography into a theatre of Ethiopian memory and global urgency. Her Afrofuturist tableaux of painted bodies, vivid colours, and charged objects merge Omo Valley ornamentation and Gondarine period church palettes with questions of identity, gender, and the contemporary. Chosen for the cover of Tate Modern’s A World in Common exhibition, her widely exhibited and published images challenge reductive visions of Africa and reclaim its representation. Beyond her practice, Muluneh has reshaped the continent’s photographic ecosystem through Addis Foto Fest, Africa Foto Fair and Africa Print House. Awarded the EU Prize at Bamako Encounters, her work is held by MoMA and the Smithsonian.

'dayo Adedayo: Making Nigeria Visible to Itself

Having known ‘dayo Adedayo for nearly twenty years, I regard him as a mentor whose devotion to photography has profoundly shaped my own practice. His journeys through Nigeria’s 36 states and 774 local government areas culminate in twenty coffee-table books documenting its landscapes, festivals and historic monuments. His images appear as watermarks in Nigerian passports, feature on the centenary ₦100 note and welcome you to major Nigerian airports. His DAP Experience Centre in Lagos expands this national archive through photography, moving image and immersive technology. Adedayo enables Nigerians to see their country anew—and fall in love with its astonishing beauty.

Laura El-Tantawy: The Emotional Geography of Home

Raised across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the US, and Britain, Brighton-based Laura El-Tantawy explores home, belonging and humanity through lyrical, impressionistic photography. In the Shadow of the Pyramids entwines her search for her Egyptian identity with the Arab Spring, while Pang’Ono Pang’Ono follows Malawian women seeking water. The People, Beyond Here Is Nothing and A Star in the Sea extend her exploration of collective memory and displacement. Working across photography, film and books, she makes documentary experience felt from within. Her honours include the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Award, Prix Virginia, PHMuseum Grant and a Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nomination.