Sub-Saharan Africa is extremely complex in terms of beliefs. Officially, two monotheistic religions – Christianity and Islam – dominate the region. However, in this part of the world, they have been subjected to many adjustments and modifications, and thus, they coexist in a quite harmonious way with the countless endemic beliefs and practices of the communities, to which they had been imposed throughout history.
At first, the photograph Carrying Faith by Sackitey Tesa Mate-Kodjo seems to be an unequivocally critical work. We instinctively interpret the crucifix placed on the model’s back as an externally imposed burden. But appearances can be deceptive. The author himself treats the symbolism of carrying the cross as a metaphor for artists’ struggle with their own limitations and the risk of creative burnout. Despite this burden, motivated by faith, Sackitey moves forward.
Sackitey Tesa Mate-Kodjo is a self-taught Ghanaian artist based in Accra. He focuses on conceptual photography and uses this medium to reinterpret his surroundings and communicate his ideas and emotions. Everyday life, universal experiences, and the symbolism of different cultures inspire his visual storytelling practice. Through styling and prop-making, he combines different elements to create new perspectives.
Growing up in a creative household, the artist and his siblings helped their mother make costumes and stage props. Fashion and craftsmanship played an important role in his life early on. After graduating with a degree in Business Administration, Sackitey felt a need to document his thoughts and processes. This was when he started experimenting with photography. In his conceptual work, he has taken on many roles and remains open to working in and shifting between various creative fields.
© Sackitey Tesa Mate-Kodjo
Photography has always been trying to capture the image of a spirit, and photographs, due to their anachronic nature and slightly alchemical provenience, are perfect for crossing the border between the living and the dead. In her elaborate photographic series Forever Is not Ours, Margaret Ngigi, an artist from Mombasa, consciously inscribes her works into this tradition. She does that by applying carefully selected means of expression, such as multiple exposures, light, precise color selection, and perhaps above all, recreating traditional post-mortem make-up which involves painting pupils on the closed eyelids of the photographed. The spirits from Ngigi’s photographs are not meant to frighten, haunt, or torment us. Their melancholic gestures express peace, openness, and even an invitation to coexist in their world. Through her works, the artist successfully conveys the pre-Christian, indigenous spirituality of East Africa, according to which the line between life and death is not unambiguous at all. Following this philosophy, the spirits of the dead harmoniously coexist with the living, co-creating our earthly reality.
Born in 1996, is a visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker born, raised, and currently living in Kenya. She holds a bachelor’s degree in film production and directing from the United States International University of Africa. Margaret has been practicing photography since 2015. In 2022, she won the first prize in the East African Photography Award, and in 2020, she was nominated as the Photo London Emerging Photographer of the Year.
Internationally, she has exhibited her works at art fairs such as Photo Basel and Photo London. Her projects have been presented at solo shows, including Murky Waters in London (2020) and Mimi Ni Nani? (2022) in collaboration with AKKA Project. She works with galleries such as AKKA Project and Doyle Wham.
She considers her work to be her personal diary, a visual record of her development as she navigates the world around her. In her artistic practice, she explores the complexities of growing up and deals with the changes and challenges that come with the transition from adolescence to adulthood and womanhood. Through her work, she tries to capture the many facets of this journey, as well as the emotions and experiences that define us as individuals. She also hopes to inspire others to embrace their personal journeys, to appreciate the beauty and complexity of life, and to celebrate the various stages of growth and development that we all experience as human beings. In her earlier projects, she explored themes such as marriage (Mke Mwema) and the position of women in society (Murky Waters).
© Margaret Ngigi
© Margaret Ngigi
© Margaret Ngigi
Ayomide Tejuoso says that her series My Sin Is Blue is an expression of an overwhelming longing for her homeland, Nigeria. Living alone on a secularized European continent, she realized that she had a need to reclaim the sense of community and the experience of sacrum. Referring to the concept of the Black Church, which embodies the experience of being part of a community rooted in Black visual culture, the artist embarked on exploring the community of the African diaspora. In collaboration with Black people living in France and Great Britain, she conducted truly poetic photo sessions dedicated to the experience of Black identity and tensions between the sacred and profane. As a result, she created deeply ambiguous, sad, and nostalgic images of the contemporary search for spirituality in a foreign, often unfriendly and ill-disposed, land.
Ayomide Tejuoso (Plantation) is a Nigerian-British artist based in Geneva and London. Working across photography, film, and installation art, she turns her practice into a frenzied search for Blackness by constructing visual tales of the Black experience and expression. She creates visual worlds deeply immersed in the Black sacred and profane, while exploring themes such as the Black home, Black boyhood, girlhood, death, and love. Through her work, she delves into the complexities of being a Nigerian and navigating viscous systems. Drawing inspiration from esteemed Black creative visionaries such as Deana Lawson, Arthur Jafa, Liz Johnson Artur, and Khalil Joseph, Ayomide Tejuoso actively references their perspectives and contributes to the ongoing evolution of Black visual culture. Her artistic endeavors have garnered recognition, and her works have been exhibited in prestigious institutions across Europe and West Africa, including: PhotoVogue Festival 2021, Foam Talent 2021, Photo Vogue Voice Residency 2022, PhMuseum Women’s Grant Shortlist 2022, Getxophoto Festival Shortlist 2022, OSCAM Amsterdam, Rele Gallery, and Affinity Gallery.
Currently, she works in the fields of creative direction and literary production, coordinating a visual campaign for PhotoVogue Festival and writing for TWIST Magazine, New Currency Magazine, and PhotoVogue. She is invested in visual culture and its iterations. She examines how to re-contextualize a brand through creative practice and across the digital and physical spheres. Her writing is grounded in research and she uses language to further her passion for architecture, Black revolutionary thought, and contemporary art.
© Ayomide Tejuoso
© Ayomide Tejuoso
© Ayomide Tejuoso
Participation in some religious practices requires previous initiation. To see, understand, and experience them, one has to take part in them as a member of the community, not as an outsider. This initiated gaze of the insider makes the project Connectivity with the Invisible by Kofi Djifa Seble truly unique. Seble photographs the West African mystery of voodoo practiced by his family and close ones in the traditional community which he comes from. In a series of black and white photographs, the artist uses multiple exposures to depict the rituals of initiation that refer to the four elements (LES ABLAFO, LES KOKOUSSI, LES HEBIOSSI, and LES DANSI MAMI WATA). Through music, dance, and rituals, the practice of voodoo stretches a bridge between the visible and invisible worlds and connects the living with the dead. The project by Seble, dense with symbols and vibrating with rhythms, gives a unique opportunity to at least partially participate in the mystery, without going through the subsequent stages of initiation.
© Kofi Djifa Seble
© Kofi Djifa Seble
© Kofi Djifa Seble
