From Lagos to Bamako: Biennales and Global Conversations in African Photography (Online)

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This webinar will examine the Rencontres de Bamako (Bamako Encounters), Africa’s premier photography biennale, as a critical site for global artistic exchange and local cultural development. Since its inception in 1994, the biennial has served as a unique platform for African photographers to engage with international audiences while fostering regional networks and creative infrastructures. Drawing on Jennifer Bajorek and Erin Haney’s seminal essay, “Eye on Bamako: Conversations on the African Photography Biennial” (Theory, Culture & Society, 2010), the discussion will unpack the biennale’s dual role as a cultural nexus and a contested space negotiating issues of representation, globalization, and funding structures.

The session will also situate Bamako Encounters within the broader evolution of photography in Nigeria and West Africa, highlighting connections to projects such as Invisible Borders Trans African Photography Project and the conceptual practice of Uche Okpa-Iroha, Art History Graduate Fellow, whose work interrogates identity, colonial legacies, and cinematic narratives. By exploring these dynamics, the webinar aims to illuminate how biennales like Bamako catalyze transnational dialogues while nurturing local talent, ultimately reshaping the global perception of African visual culture.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Uche Okpa-Iroha is the 2026 Block Museum Curatorial Graduate Fellow and an Art History doctoral student at Northwestern University. Presently, he is exploring photographic archives in Nigeria as part of new research investigating these archives as sites of silence, memory, and history, and how these materials hold valuable information for shaping new historical discourse in contemporary times. Okpa-Iroha is the Founder and Director of Lagos-based informal photography school, The Nlele Institute. He is a founding member of the Nigerian photography group the Blackbox Photography Collective and of the Invisible Borders Trans-African photography travel group. Twice has won the Grand Prix Seydou Keita Award for the best photography creation with the “Under Bridge Life” (2009) and “the Plantation Boy” (2015).  He also received the Jean Paul Blachere prize in 2009 and the Callanan Excellence in Teaching Award by Center Santa Fe, New Mexico USA in 2022. Okpa-Iroha is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2011- 2012). He co-founded the photography and video art night of projections – FOTOPARTY Lagos and the Lagos Portfolio Review. Okpa-Iroha is also the founder of Lagos Open Range Exhibition Project.

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu