Using visual provocation and conceptual rigor, these photographers explore new perspectives that might otherwise not be possible through anything but art. They question how personal and shared identities are shaped and transformed through social and political pressures. Thus, the symbolism and aesthetic of their images invite viewers to consider the photographs from multiple perspectives, including through personal discovery, social critique, and political commentary.

Kiluanji Kia Henda

Kiluanji Kia Henda was born in 1979 in Luanda, Angola, four years after the country’s independence and the start of its civil war. A self-taught visual artist, he grew up in a family of photography enthusiasts. His father was involved in the struggle for independence and discussions about politics were a part of family life. Kia Henda examines Angola’s colonial history and explores new perspectives for its future, often in a humorous and ironic way. Working in photography, video, installation, and performance, he connects Angola’s struggle for liberation and pursuit of a postcolonial identity to global histories of slavery and colonization. He reflects on various subjects like politics, war, and poverty, repurposing public spaces charged with historical significance to reshape collective memory. In The Geometric Ballad of Fear (2015), Kia Henda captured the protective metal railings found in Angola’s wealthy houses to highlight the disparities amongst people. Four years later, he used the same grids to overlay views of the Sardinian landscape, evoking metal barriers of protection against migratory flows. Those railing were then used to assemble a large sculpture, A Espiral do Medo (2022).

Shiraz Bayjoo

Shiraz Bayjoo was born in 1979 in Port Louis, Mauritius. In 2001, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Bayjoo draws on personal and public archives to address in his practice issues of cultural memory, nationhood, and the challenges of establishing a collective identity within a globalised postcolonial context. Working with painting, photography, and installation, he explores the legacy of colonialism across the Indian Ocean region and its complex histories of slavery, migration, and displacement. In the series Searching for Libertalia (2019), Bayjoo uses the fictional story of the utopian settlement of Libertalia in the northeast of Madagascar, as a framework to underline anti-colonial movements in today’s Africa and their relation to questions of race and identity. Focusing on portraits, he highlights subjects who have been overlooked by mainstream western histories, underlining their stories and significance to bring them on equal steed. He has also worked with Indigenous groups in Australia and the United States, observing similar narratives around ecological repairs and personal healing within communities. It is in this context that ideas relating to permaculture and its methodologies have become particularly relevant in a decolonisation discourse.

Athi-Patra Ruga

Athi-Patra Ruga was born in 1984 in Umtata, South Africa. He studied fashion history and design at the Gordon Flack Davison Design Academy, graduating in 2004. Inspired by the work of renowned fashion designers, he started to combine art with fashion through performance. Engaging with themes of queerness, generational trauma, and liberation, his work explores the body in relation to sensuality, culture, and ideology, often creating cultural hybrids. Ruga creates videos, photographs, and costumes that confront and analyze the colonial history of South Africa. Imagining a utopian future free of social norms, his vibrant works feature highly constructed environments and glamorous avatars that are an amalgam of spiritual figures and celebrities. In his multimedia series The Future White Women of Azania (2016), Ruga explores the possibility of a truly free, decolonized Africa. He tells the history of the non-dynastic line of queens who rule Azania, a utopian region located in southeastern Africa. In his early series Even I Exist in Embo (2007), he challenges and reimagines the boundaries of identity, narrative, and place. The word Embo, alluding to both place and myth, evokes his ongoing dialogue with the country’s cultural archives and lived experience.