Abraham Oghobase

Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1979, Abraham Oghobase studied at the Yaba College of Technology’s School of Art, Design and Printing in Lagos, majoring in photography. He often uses himself as material for his performance-based work, exploring urban identity and social activism. In the series Untitled (2012), Oghobase performs in front of the camera, pictured mid-air against walls with hand-painted advertisements. The impact of socio-economic dynamics on people lives is a recurrent theme in his work, especially when addressing the role of physical spaces in shaping individuals and their actions. In Jam (2008), he looked at the effect of population growth in Lagos, which resulted in a struggle for real estate, and forcing desperate owners to spray “not for sale” sign on their walls to protect their houses. Recently, Oghobase has adapted four-color separation printing techniques to create compositions consisting of monochrome layers of images, taking a conceptual turn from documentary photography.

Andrew Esiebo

Andrew Esiebo was born in 1978 in Lagos, Nigeria. After developing an interest in photography, he began photographing the rapid growth of the Nigerian metropolis. His work covers various social issues including sexuality, gender politics, and immigration. Esiebo's approach to documentary photography is focused on building relationships and trust to produce a genuine involvement with his surroundings. His fondness for documenting intimate communal spaces started with the series Pride (2013), when he traveled within the West African region to explore male hair barbing. In Highlife (2016) series, Esiebo explores the vibrant party culture of Lagos, capturing a variety of events from traditional weddings to street parties. Each image is an invitation to contemplate the nightlife, with a view on people caught in moments of delight, exhaustion, or solitude. Esiebo also explored the nightlife scene with the series Members Only (2014), where he follows a bouncer from his daily three-hour workouts to his overnight shifts.

Edson Chagas

Edson Chagas was born in 1977 in Luanda, Angola. He completed his studies in photojournalism at the London College of Communication in 2007, and studied documentary photography at the University of Wales in Newport the following year. His work has since developed a more introspective focus beyond the standards of photojournalism. Chagas is interested in social issues and the relationship between space and time. His work can be considered abstract with a regard on social context, specifically at consumerist culture and identity politics. In his Found Not Taken (2013) series, Chagas resituates abandoned objects elsewhere within cities. Each object was captured in spaces where it interacted with its environment. In the series Oikonomos (2011), Chagas photographs himself posing with various plastic bags covering his head, obscuring his own identity with their messages of consumption and globalization.

Mário Macilau

Born in 1984 in Maputo, Mozambique, Mário Macilau grew up in the streets of Maputo, working odd jobs to survive for many years. He discovered his talent for photography in his teenage years, when shooting his first image with a borrowed camera. Since then, Macilau started capturing images using an analogue camera in 2007. His style of photography is characterised by black and white images with muted tones and textures. He also uses depth of field and natural light to give more nuances to his pictures. Macilau’s projects often document the lives of people at the margins of society in circumstances he knows all too well from his own experience. He explored the global issue of waste and consumption in The Profit Corner (2016) series. Taken in a landfill away from Maputo, the place attracts thousands of people who live around it and make a living off recycling the waste. The recyclers use burning tyres to separate metal from circuit boards, which they can resell.

Léonard Pongo

Léonard Pongo was born in 1988 in Brussels, Belgium to a Belgian mother and a Congolese father. He is specialised in working on long-term projects, immersing himself in peoples’ reality or culture. He questions the usual narrative about Africa by presenting a different vision of the continent, motivated by a need to connect rather than explaining African societies. Pongo tries to challenge our usual conceptions and stereotypes of Africa, while moving the narration of the continent away from the crises and closer to the people’s life. In 2011, he started working on The Uncanny, a project documenting life in Congo DR during the second democratic elections. In The Necessary Evil, one of the impressionistic chapters of The Uncanny, Pongo shows the blossoming of unorthodox religious communities that are based more on charismatic leadership than on strictly defined dogma. In 2013 he returned to Congo’s mining city of Lubumbashi to continue his work, collaborating with local TV news to create a personal vision of the country based on the small-scale events that rhythm the local life.