A World in Common

Contemporary African Photography

A celebration of the visual and cultural landscape of contemporary African photography, this stunning book offers critical insight from the perspectives of Africa's leading artists.

Since the invention of photography in the nineteenth century, Africa has been defined largely by Western images of its cultures and traditions. From the colonial carte de visite and ethnographic archive to the rise of studio portraiture and social documents of racial surveillance, the fraught relationship between Africa and the photographic lens has become inseparable from the discourses of post-colonialism.

Challenging these historical images of exoticism and otherness, this book illustrates how artists have used photography and video art to reimagine history and expand our understanding of contemporary realities.

Bringing together a diverse range of artists and thinkers to present perspectives on issues such as spirituality, urbanism and climate change, this book reveals the many ways images travel across time and geography, and how artists are redefining perceptions of the world we inhabit.