Founder

Julie Bonzon (Dr) is a London-based art historian and a specialist in South African Photography. She completed a Masters in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2015, and a PhD at University College London in 2020. Bonzon has worked for the Cultural Department of Magnum Photos London, The Photographer’s Gallery, The Ian Parry Scholarship and has written for numerous publications including The Eye of Photography Magazine, Nataal, and Telling Time, the catalogue of the 10th Bamako Biennale. She founded The Photographic Collective in 2020.

Co-directors

Léonard Pongo is a photographer and a visual artist. His work has been published worldwide and featured in numerous exhibitions including the recent IncarNations at the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts and the 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial. He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2016, is a recipient of the Visura Grant 2017, the Getty Reportage Grant 2018 and participated in the Joop Swart Masterclass 2018. ‘Primordial Earth’, his latest project, was shown at the Lubumbashi Biennale and at the Bamako Encounters Biennale of African Photography where it was awarded the Prix de l’OIF. Pongo is based between Brussels and Kinshasa.

Francis Nii Obodai Provençal is based in Accra, Ghana and Maputo, Mozambique. He works with photography, audio, and text and is particularly interested in photography as a medium for recording and celebrating the unseen and the everyday in Africa. His deep interest in how the past is remembered stems in part from aphantasia, a condition which prevents him from forming images in his mind. In 1998, he co-established Nuku Café in Accra, which evolved into Nuku Studio and later the eponymous Nuku Photo Festival, Ghana’s first photography festival. Nii Obodai’s work has been exhibited internationally, notably in the Addis Ababa Festival, the Guggenheim Museum and the Bamako Encounters.

Advisory board

Ishola Akpo explores the possibilities of digital technologies, modernity and tradition, reality and fiction. In 2013, he was awarded the Visa pour la création and presented the series ‘Pas de flash s'il vous plaît’ at the Institut Français of Cotonou. His series 'L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux' was published in 2014 and later showcased at Africa Is No Island, MACAAL and 1:54 fair in Morocco. Akpo's ‘Les mariés de notre époque’ entered the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris in 2015. Akpo has undertaken numerous artistic residencies, notably at the Montresso Foundation (Morocco) and the Zinsou Foundation (Benin). He lives and works in Benin.

Jabulani Dhlamini was born in Warden, South Africa and lives and works in Johannesburg. His work deals with memory and remembering, traumas of the past and photographs as monuments. He is the Manager Of Soul and Joy, a project teaching photography skills to youth from disadvantaged backgrounds in Thokoza. After his studies at the Vaal University of Technology, Dhlamini was the recipient of the Edward Ruiz Mentorship 2011/12 at the Market Photo Workshop. He has exhibited his earlier series ‘uMama’ at The Photo Workshop Gallery and Goodman Gallery Cape Town and ‘Recapture’ at the Goodman Gallery Cape Town.

Laura El-Tantawy is a British/Egyptian documentary photographer, artful book maker & mentor. Born in Worcestershire, UK, she studied in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the US & UK. Having lived between east and west for most of her life, this multidimensionality inspires her work. She explores notions of home and belonging and is recognised for her uniquely lyrical eye on reality. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Afar, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Time, New York Times, Huck & Foam. El-Tantawy prides herself on her independent identity as a visual creative

Laila Hida lives and works in Marrakech. In her conceptual approach, she explores the boundaries between photography and video, non-negotiated social spaces, and the idea of transformation as a constant. Her ongoing book-project, ‘Everything is temporary’ (2015-present) relies on her personal archives (textual and photographic) to sketch an archeology of intimacy. She observes the effects of psychological narratives (resilience, self-analysis) on the evolution of an artwork across time and space. In 2013, Hida founded LE 18, Derb el Ferrane, a multidisciplinary art space for artists, curators, researchers, cultural agents and local communities.

Pippa Hetherington obtained a Masters in Fine Art through the International Center of Photography-Bard College, New York, USA. Her work invites questions around family, history, cultural identity and memory. Working with photography, video documentary and textiles, she explores untold stories of loss and remembrance. She is co-founder of Behind the Faces, a pan-African women’s storytelling project, launched at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, in 2013. She has been represented in solo and group exhibitions in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Durban, Port Elizabeth (South Africa); London (UK); Dublin (Ireland); New York City and Washington, DC (USA). Hetherington was nominated by The Photographic Collective members in 2020.

Ala Kheir was in born in Nyala, Sudan. He started practicing photography as a hobby while he was finishing a degree in mechanical engineering in 2005. In 2009, Kheir co-funded the Sudanese Photographers group with the aim to develop and promote photography in Sudan. His work has been exhibited internationally, notably in the Dakar Biennale, The Addis Foto Fest and the Venice Biennale. Kheir now runs ToV (the other vision), an initiative focused on photography education in Sudan.

Ange-Frédéric Koffi was born in Korhogo, in the north of the Ivory Coast. He explores the complex articulations of movement, travel and wandering within the history and practice of photography. He applies contemporary postcolonial reflections through various forms and devices in the public sphere to generate a social impact. His work freely crosses disciplines as diverse as political history, exhibition history, anthropology and design. A graduate of the Sorbonne, the Haute Ecole des Arts du Rhin (HEAR) and the Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne (ECAL), Ange-Frédéric was recently nominated for the FOAM 2022 awards (Amsterdam) and has just completed a residency at Zeitz Mocaa (Cape Town).

Michelle Loukidis received her photographic training at TUT in Tshwane. She has trained and mentored young photographers for over 15 years at the Market Photo Workshop and run workshops in Sudan, Kinshasa and Cape Verde. Loukidis is the co-founder of Through the Lens Collective, a collaborative educational and developmental photographic space created by South African visual artists and educators. A fine artist herself, Loukidis has exhibited her photographs in solo and group exhibitions. She is based in Johannesburg.

Mário Macilau is a multidisciplinary artist and an activist, best known for his photographic work. In 2007 he launched himself as a professional photographer, covertly trading his mother’s mobile phone for an excellent Nikon FM2. His photographs highlight identity, political issues and environmental conditions, often using portraiture as his starting point. Macilau received numerous awards, notably the Santa Lucia Award and the Visa Pour La Creation. His work has been exhibited internationally, such as 1:54 Art Fair in London, the Beijing Photo Biennale, Unseen in Amsterdam and the Johannesburg Art Fair. Macilau was born and currently lives in Maputo, Mozambique.

Uche Okpa-Iroha is a photographer and visual artist who lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria. He was awarded the Seydou keita Award twice for the best photography creation at the 8th and 10th Bamako Encounters and received the Jean Paul Blachere prize in 2009. He was nominated in the Prix Pictet Award in 2010 and the National Geographic All Roads Photography program in 2011. He is a leading member of the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Project, a founding member of the Blackbox Photography Collective and the founder of the Nlele Institute. His work has been exhibited internationally, notably at the 56th Venice Biennale and the Joburg Art Fair.

Alida Rodrigues (b. in Angola) lives in London. She works within the medium of collage which brings together 19th-century portrait photographs with botanical illustrations. The collages are created from cuttings of botanical images applied to found postcards, carte de visite, photographs and cabinet photos. She uses botanical illustrations to show the exoticism of the plants (referencing to distant land they originated from) while mainly focusing on the lack of photographic images showing people of different ethnic groups which have mainly been kept in museums or hidden away from the public. Rodrigues received her BA in Fine Art from The Slade School of Fine Art in 2007. Her work has been exhibited internationally.

Rijasolo was born in France. In 2004, he went back to Madagascar, his country of origin, which he had not visited for twenty years. Rijasolo set up RIVA PRESS in 2007, in association with four photojournalists concerned with maintaining an independent view. His work has appeared in international newspapers such as Libération, Le Monde, Paris Match, Jeune Afrique, Telerama and Science Magazine. In 2010, he won the 1st prize of Leica 35 mm wide angle contest. Since 2013, he collaborates with AFP as a photographer. Rijasolo lives and works in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Cultural network

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