By jumping in fearlessly, getting involved in the community, and waiting for that decisive moment, a new generation of African street photographers is active in shaping the way we view the world. With an increased mobility, they provide a visual expression of a situation or scene that describes the reality of their city, from people using the streets for recreational activities to people working on the street to make ends meet.

Baudouin Mouanda

Baudouin Mouanda was born in 1981 in Ouesso, Congo-Brazzaville. He began shooting pictures in 1993, after receiving a camera as a gift from his father. He quickly started to chronicle life in Brazzaville for local newspapers. His early work led to a series of photography entitled The Aftermath of War (2005), which gave another look at the civil war of 1997 in his country. Upon completing his studies in Law at the University of Brazzavile, Mouanda travelled to study photojournalism in Paris in 2007. He took the opportunity to document the lifestyle of the Congolese diaspora, especially the sapeurs – a group of dandies who dress in luxurious and colorful suits. In 2008, he returned to Brazzaville and continued his work on the sapeurs with the series Sapeurs de Bacongo (2008), which was exhibited in Paris in 2009 and during the Bamako Encounters in 2010. Since then, the photographer has undertaken numerous residences abroad and worked on various projects.

Siaka Soppo Traoré

Siaka Soppo Traoré was born in 1986 in Douala, Cameroon of Burkinabé parents. He was raised in Togo, where he learned drawing and painting. Moving to Senegal for his studies, he developed an interest for performing arts and practised hip-hop dance as well as capoeira. Upon graduating in civil engineering in 2011, Traoré started to learn photography on his own the following year. Fascinated by dancing, his photographic work mainly focuses on the body language, people in movement, and their interaction with different environments. In 2014, his photographic series Sunu Street was exhibited during the Dakar Biennale. That series documents the rising, yet largely unacknowledged, Senegalese scene of urban street performance. Another series of images, "Voyages, Images et Corps" features Senegalese hip hop dancers and various Cameroonian dancers who met for two weeks in 2016 in a project promoting the positive spirit of urban youth in Dakar, Senegal and Douala, Cameroon.

Max Mbakop

Max Mbakop was born in Ndoungué, Cameroon. He learned photography at an early age, and started to take pictures of his family and friends. Upon completing his studies in Computer Sciences in 2004, Mbakop became interested in performing arts with successive training in theater, scenography, and stagecraft. In 2005, he met the late Goddy Leye in Douala, with whom he learned conceptual photography and participated in a video art workshop. Since then, he went on exploring visual arts through video and photography. In 2010, Mbakop started to document the emergence of rollerblading and freestyle BMX as part of the Douala’s urban cultures. His images show the social bonding of bike riders and roller skaters as well as their interactions and performance. His series was exhibited in Yaoundé during the YaPhoto festival in 2016 and in Tokyo for the Arakawa Africa festival in 2017.

Rodrig Mbock

Rodrig Mbock was born in 1978 in Eséka, Cameroon. He became conscious of painting and design during childhood. In 2005, he enrolled at the faculty of cinema and performing arts, and he trained in graphic design after his graduation. In 2010, Mbock was selected to participate in a training workshop on photography for development organized by World Press Photo in Dakar, Senegal. Upon returning to his homeland, he started working on social projects. Inspired by the society in which he lives, he puts people at the center of his work by dealing with strong and engaged social subjects. In his series Bendskinners (2016), Mbock captured the daily life of motorcycle taxi drivers, commonly named bendskinners locally. He tried to shed a positive light on those drivers for whom this profession is a livelihood. Since 2015, Mbock collaborate with NGOs on development projects while working on artistic projects.