012 ☼ Tender Photo - Group Showing
Five Incredible Photographers from Africa
New Exhibition:
Tender Photo
A Group Show
July 23 - September 2
Friends,
I am thrilled to present the latest edition of the Process Projected exhibition series, featuring the captivating work of five talented African photographers from the Tender Photo platform founded by
.Abdul Hamid Kanu’ series "Freetown: Street Stories" is a documentary and street photography project that captures the everyday beauty of Freetown, Sierra Leone. This series celebrates the simple moments that define the city’s spirit and invites viewers to see the poetry in ordinary scenes."
Aina Zo Raberanto’s describes their project "Spectrum" as follows:
“The whole thing takes on a misty appearance. The photo is no longer displayed, it alludes, and everything rests on the impression, to this particular atmosphere, like a dull melancholy. By playing on superimpositions, I accentuate the effect, deliberately plunging our gaze into an abstraction that opens up not to the world but to ourselves.”
Fibi Afloe reflects on their project "Gidan Mu (Our Home)":
"Gidan Mu (Our Home) is about a compound house my family and I have lived with other families for the past 70 years. The house has been sold out and the new owner has given us notice to vacate it by July 2024."
Lidudumalingani describes their project "A Village Relearning Its Communal Rhythm After Covid":
"The project was shot right after the COVID restrictions were lifted, and my village, Zikhovane, was trying to find its feet, returning to its usual communal rhythm after being forced to live apart instead of together."
Thero Makepe comments on his "We Didn’t Choose to be Born Here" series:
"This body of work is an exploration of Botswana and South Africa’s socio-political fabric through a personal lens. Blending staged portraiture, documentary images, and re-enactments, I weave personal family stories with national history."
Tender Photo, founded by Emmanuel Iduma, is a collaborative digital archive showcasing contemporary African photography. It aims to engage with Africa's diverse life through the lenses of photographers, writers, and curators, enriching narratives and shifting global perceptions.
Let me know if you pop by the gallery, I might be there or nearby.
Wesley Verhoeve, curator
Process Projected at What Is Happening Here Gallery
Reguliersdwarsstraat 73, Amsterdam
Opening Times: Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon until 6pm
Upcoming Exhibition
This edition of Process Projected is the last of the first season and will be on display until September 2nd. The new season will be unveiled on September 3rd.
Subscribe to Process Projected to discover the stories that matter through the lens of emerging and established photographers in our Process Projected exhibition series, showcasing compelling and socially involved narratives. One email every two weeks.
About The Artists
Abdul Hamid Kanu is a self-taught photographer deeply inspired by the beauty of everyday life and the power of storytelling. His work focuses on themes of home and belonging, documenting daily lives and experiences in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Follow along with Abdul on Instagram.
Aina Zo Rabarento is a cultural journalist in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and the editor-in-chief of a Madagascar cultural magazine. Passionate about photography since 2017, she captures the streets of her country, with a preference for black and white photography.
Follow along with Aina on Instagram.
Fibi Afloe is a documentary photographer based in Nima, Accra, Ghana. Her photography practice documents everyday life, capturing the essence of her community and personal experiences.
Follow along with Fibi on Instagram.
Lidudumalingani is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is currently a Commissioning Editor at Multichoice/Showmax. His work explores communal life and social dynamics.
Follow along with Lidudumalingani on Instagram.
Thero Makepe is an artist born in Gaborone, Botswana, currently living and working in Gaborone, Cape Town, and Johannesburg. His work blends personal family stories with national history, focusing on the socio-political fabric of Botswana and South Africa.
Follow along with Thero on Instagram.
About Tender Photo
Tender Photo is a collaborative digital archive and publishing platform of contemporary African photography. It aims to use photography to engage with life on the African continent in all its diversity. Tender Photo works with photographers, writers, and curators to contextualize images, using digital methods to provide richer narratives about the people, places, and events pictured in photographs, thereby contributing to a shift in global perception of the continent.
Founded by the writer and critic Emmanuel Iduma in February 2022 as a newsletter publication, Tender Photo has featured the work of over 120 photographers from more than 20 countries, and we continue to share new features with close to 3000 subscribers each week. The newsletter has been profiled in The Conversation, Contemporary And, and Africa e Mediterraneo.
For more information about Tender Photo and to explore these projects further, visit Tender Photo.
About Emmanuel Iduma
Born and raised in Nigeria, Emmanuel Iduma is a writer and critic whose widely published work spans fiction, memoir and criticism. He is the author of two acclaimed works of nonfiction, the travelogue A Stranger’s Pose (2018), longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize, and the memoir I Am Still With You (2023), featured on best-of lists by The New Yorker, TIME, Boston Globe, and Vulture.
His writing on photography has appeared in Aperture, Art in America, Artforum, n+1, Brooklyn Rail, British Journal of Photography, Tate Etc., T Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, the New York Review of Books, the Yale Review, and other publications. La forma della luce (Many Words of Light), a book-length essay on photography, was published in 2024 by the Venice-based Wetlands Books.
His honors include the Windham-Campbell Prize for Literature, C/O Berlin Prize for Theory, the Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Criticism by AICA-USA, and the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. In 2020, he was recognized in Apollo International Art Magazine’s “40 under 40 Africa” for the broad social impact of his work.
He studied law in Nigeria, and Art Criticism and Writing at the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he taught for several years. He is based in Lagos, Nigeria and Norwich, UK.
Follow along with Emmanuel on his website.
About The Curator
Wesley Verhoeve is an Amsterdam-based photographer and curator.
His photography has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, National Geographic, the Washington Post, Wired, and others.
As a curator, Wesley was responsible for 96 exhibits at the International Center of Photography in New York City, highlighting the works of over three hundred photographers from across fifty countries. Previous to ICP, Wesley served as the first curator-at-large for WeTransfer, curating works by over six hundred visual creatives.
Wesley Verhoeve also publishes Process, a weekly newsletter dedicated to photography and discovering one's voice. It was the first photography newsletter published on the Substack platform with over 12,000 subscribers.
Great pick for the exhibition. I love Tender Photo.