Zohra Opoku

Zohra Opoku was born in 1976 in Altdöbern, Germany of Ghanaian and German descent. She completed her MA in Fashion from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in 2003. She worked with Danish designer Henrick Vibskov before fully concentrating on art. Opoku’s examination of textile culture considers the political, psychological, and social role of fashion in shaping personal identities. She has oriented her practice towards the rich cultures of textiles and design, which have been an inherent part of West African identity throughout Ghana’s layered history. In Sassa (2016), Opoku explored the Asante region to capture the Ahemaa, Queen Mothers of the Ashanti. She also created a set of self-portraits in nature, revealing images of the self only completed by the influence of place. Her most recent project, Unraveled Threads (2017), is a continuation of her work with textiles and photography as expressions of history and culture.

Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode was born in 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa. He came of age in the newly post-apartheid era, and was exposed to new forms of creative expression motivated by the spirit of the individual rather than dictated by a political or social agenda. In 1997, Rhode began working on performances using public spaces throughout Johannesburg, interacting with objects drawn on walls and sidewalks of the city. With a mastery of illusion, he transforms the urban landscape into a fictional storyboard using photography, performance, and drawing. In He Got Game (2000), the figure accomplishes an acrobatic slam-dunk into a hoop drawn on the ground. Rhode mainly reflects on social issues such as urban violence in Gun Drawings (2004) and racial conflict in Color Chart (2006). He has also enacted his performances within galleries and museums, famously drawing a urinal onto a gallery wall in South African National Gallery in Cape Town and urinating on it in Leak (2000).

Dawit Petros

Dawit Petros was born in 1972 in Asmara, Eritrea. He studied Art at Tufts University, Boston and Photography at Concordia University, Montreal. His practice centers on a critical reconsideration of the relationship between African histories and European modernism. Working with photography and installations, Petros employs abstraction as an act of translation to push against naturalised ways of understanding form, colour and subjectivity. In The Stranger’s Notebook (2016), the artist sketches out the beginnings of an epic journey across the African continent. The work was produced during a year-long trip that covered territory from Nigeria to Morocco and into Europe. By drawing upon forms rooted in diverse histories, Petros' artistic language enables a metaphorically rich articulation of the fluidity of contemporary transnational experiences and attendant issues of displacement, place-making, and cultural negotiation.

Fabrice Monteiro

Fabrice Monteiro was born in 1972 in Namur, Belgium to a Beninese father and a Belgian mother. Working as a professional model, he became aware of the complexity of the composition, the lighting and the posture. In 2007, Monteiro meets the New York photographer Alfonse Pagano, who quickly becomes his friend/mentor and granted him access to his studio. Building on knowledge gather by observing several photographers for many years, he decided to start his own photography practice. He started taking pictures for the fashion world, which he abandoned quickly in favor of subjects that are more personal. The series Marrons (2015), dedicated to the theme of slavery, originates from the history of his family and of Benin. In The Prophecy (2015), Monteiro collaborated with the costume designer Doulsy to address the environmental degradation and pollution he found in Dakar.