Inspire Edition 5 – Africa Foto Fair

AFF 2025 Virtual Review & Mentorship Program

In Partnership with

The AFF 2025 Virtual Review & Mentorship Program created a bridge between emerging photographers from the Global South and global industry expertise, fostering creative growth and cultural exchange. With limited access to in-person opportunities, the virtual reviews offered essential support for concept refinement, portfolio building, and navigating new media landscapes like AI and international exhibitions.

The cohort of 15 includes creatives from Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa, UK, Morocco, DRC, Burundi, and Hong Kong—fostering cross-cultural conversation and mentorship exchange. Participants engaged deeply with peers and experts, bridging global photography practices through virtual collaboration. Participants received more than technical critiques—they gained guidance in shaping cohesive bodies of work, developing artist statements, and creating strategic pricing, all of which strengthened their readiness for submissions, grants, residencies, and exhibitions.

This initiative reflects Africa Foto Fair’s mission to democratize access to world-class photography education while elevating authentic, localized narratives. Supported by Catchlight and featuring mentors Fiona Shields and Ala Kheir, the program provided grounded editorial insights and culturally resonant guidance. Equipped with refined portfolios and global strategies, participants are now positioned with confidence to showcase their work at AFF 2025 and beyond.

Guest Instructors

Visual storyteller

Sudanese visual storyteller and AFF 2024 exhibitor co-mentored sessions under Aïda Muluneh’s guidance, leading ten virtual sessions covering concept development, peer feedback, reviews, technical mastery, editing, portfolio preparation, and networking strategy.

Head of Photography at The Guardian

Fiona Shields is a veteran picture editor with leadership roles in major awards like World Press Photo, Sony World Photography Awards, and Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize.

Photo Editor & Photographer

Thomas Borberg, a Danish photo editor and photographer, former Photo Editor-in-Chief at Politiken with over a decade of experience. He has served as a World Press Photo jury member and chairman, lecturer, and reviewer at international festivals and universities.

Featured Participants

Sudanese documentary photographer and filmmaker Ammar Altahir, work centers on stories of conflict, displacement, and the lives of Sudanese refugees. As the youngest recipient of the Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant (2024), he has documented life inside the Renk Refugee Transit Camp, with work published and exhibited internationally across Italy, Denmark, Spain, Uganda, and beyond.

His deeply personal project I Will Never Find Home traces his own journey of displacement—beginning with his family’s flight to Umm Ruwaba after weeks of nearby gunfire. What followed were multiple relocations in search of safety, eventually leading him to seek asylum abroad. But as he reveals through his lens, the pain of separation from loved ones can weigh heavier than the trauma of war itself.

A haunting reflection on Rifian identity and its colonial scars, Memory in Limbo documents one of the earliest uses of chemical weapons on civilians in 1921, exposing the lasting presence of colonialism in Al Hoceima. Through imagery rooted in memory and geography, the project confronts a past that still shapes the present.

Based in Belfast, Chad Alexander creates work that meditates on the enduring traces of conflict and how they shape both people and place. Deeply connected to his local environment, his practice draws out the complex relationship between identity, memory, and the Northern Irish landscape. In Passage, Alexander turns his lens toward Belfast’s motorway system—an infrastructure born from division. Rather than focusing on overt struggle, the series quietly observes how individuals reclaim these charged spaces, using them as places of gathering, reflection, and quiet resistance in a city still marked by its fractured past.

A Hong Kong-based visual artist, Fion Hung specializes in staged photography and collage, exploring identity, gender, trauma, and disability through personal and cultural lenses. Her internationally exhibited work challenges social norms and tackles complex themes like eugenics, capitalism, and inheritance. In her ongoing series Human Unicorn(2024–), Hung blends childhood memories with political commentary to examine Chinese identity shaped by imperialism, Orientalism, and global inequality, reflecting on belonging, self-perception, and the legacy of discrimination.

Grace Springer is a documentary and community photographer based in South Wales, dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices through long-form storytelling and portraiture. Her project Butetown: Stories Through Dominoes highlights the Caribbean community of Butetown, Cardiff, focusing on the Dominoes Club as a space of connection, resilience, and cultural memory, preserving histories at risk of being lost to redevelopment.

Oladele is a documentary photographer based between Lagos and Ibadan, exploring Nigerian and African identity through stories of politics, social justice, and cultural preservation. His project 24 Years and Counting investigates the prolonged delay of the Oyo-Ogbomoso highway—an essential route linking Northern and Southwestern Nigeria—using visual reportage to reveal the impact of neglect on local communities and to question how long citizens must wait for a road that remains unfinished.

Lagos-based visual artist Taofeek Oyewole Lawal draws on his sociology background to explore social theory and everyday life. His award-winning work has been exhibited internationally and published widely. His project Bachelorhood: Becoming in Lagos captures the lives of young men navigating independence and evolving masculinity, celebrating resilience and self-discovery on their own terms.

Roz is a British early-career photographer (b. 1983) exploring myth, fiction, truth, and gender through a post-documentary lens. Dear Leader reimagines cult leaders’ personas, blurring fact and fiction to examine themes of power, charm, and male behaviour—inviting reflection on leadership, manipulation, and identity.

Robin Chaddah-Duke is a documentary photographer and filmmaker currently working in India, formerly based in Wales. His grassroots approach explores how local and global cultures intersect, focusing on communities shaped by history and modern life. An Urban Mosaic captures Hindu and Muslim communities coexisting in the vibrant urban landscapes of India, reflecting shared traditions amid rapid change. The series subtly interrogates colonial legacies while envisioning a future of harmony within India’s diverse social fabric.