A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern of work by 36 contemporary African photographers who reimagine Africa’s place in the world.

Arranged around three themes, identity and tradition, counter histories and imagined futures, the show discussed how there is no single history of Africa and the effects of colonialism.

From the majestic portraits of Nigerian monarchs by George Osodi you were pulled into the images and ideas. I’m not sure I grasped all of them, and at times it became quite philosophical, but it certainly made me think.

Images which stood out for me included Edson Chagas’s take on passport photos using traditional Bantu masks which partly spoke to the export of such masks to Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I loved the section on the role of studio photography to create identity and the juxtaposition of James Barnor’s work which had been featured at the Serpentine with more contemporary work by Ruth Einika Ossai picking up similar themes.

The librarian in me liked the work using archive material but I wasn’t always sure I’d class it as photography such as Ndidi Dike’s "A History of a City in a Box", an installation of archive boxes.

Closes 14 January 2024


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