At the LagosPhoto Festival, Tender Photos has curated Kindred, a constellation of 24 photographs and texts featured in the newsletter archive of Tender Photos. Showing an asynchronous cascade of images and blocks of text on both walls, viewers are invited to match an image with its corresponding caption.

This photo was taken in Abidjan, two days before the end of a skate tour organized by SurfGhana in October 2022. The goal of the tour, lasting a little over a week, was to bring together Ghanaian and Ivorian skate communities. I was tasked with documenting the journey. Initially, I was just going to take a group photo with all the skaters, but I am fascinated by movements. By instinct, I started moving my camera, getting closer to try to capture less frozen, less sought-after moments.

I captured this portrait of my parents in 2015. My aim was to explore the complexity of relationships and the challenges of communication, while highlighting the attachment and family values of my parent’s generation. During that time, I enjoyed performing in front of the camera, using simple props around the house to stage scenes. I liked to focus on personal narratives, relying on natural light and my DSLR camera.

The image is instantly recognizable to anyone who has done any roadside shopping in the CBD, where vendors and the city inspectorate are regularly engaged in a battle for control of sidewalks and paved pathways.

NOIR 40 is restrained and intimate, quite minimalistic and close to the skin. I set aside all accessories used in earlier works. Contrasts remain, but white exists only within black—to express Black identity in its purest, most intimate form and reveal the individuality of the sitter. My aim is to deconstruct and break stereotypes about the identity of the black woman by showing her dignity and inner strength.

This photograph was taken in the village of Ozaga, Ait Heddou Youssef in the heart of the Atlas Mountains. It is a part of my first series, «A journey into nature where time stops to play», a project that reflects my inner child by documenting the daily lives of Amazigh children.

My images oscillate between a desire to hold onto a particular moment or emotion and more deliberately orchestrated compositions. My work exists in that space between what we see and how we perceive the things we see. They are a way to catalogue experience and show evidence that I have interacted with the world around me.

Taken in 2018, this photograph is part of a documentary project, Au Quartier, which explores life in Rwandan neighborhoods. The project began in 2012 as a street photography project, capturing candid moments. It has since evolved to include interviews and personal stories, allowing me to engage directly with my subjects.

The photograph shows a person sitting on the stairway in front of a faded yellow building, wearing a mask with an elongated oval shape, adorned with what appears to be cowrie shells and raffia materials at the top. With hands clasped together between their lap, they are dressed in a layer of colourful clothes—a jacket with a vibrant checkered design, a black shirt with white details underneath, and a bright blue trouser with circular patterns and white sneakers.

This photograph was taken in Garowe in April 2023. It was a spur of the moment shot – I had been driving around with my cousin on one of the roads in Garowe where this market is located. This scene came upon us; these people standing near this market that’s closed, illuminated by its light and the streetlight, the dead tree. There’s a man I didn’t see at first sitting on the ground on the phone, oblivious to the road and its happenings.