Tender Visions
Tender Visions is a new cross-disciplinary commissioning program for photographers and writers based on the African continent, produced by Tender Photos and supported by funding from the Open Society Foundations. 13 photographers have been commissioned to produce new work within their communities, guided by predefined themes, and in collaboration with 26 writers, who are to write original creative or critical responses to the photographic projects. Our aim is to create space for deepened engagement with visual storytelling in Africa, and to bring new narratives to local and international audiences in insightful and thought-provoking ways. View the portfolios, and read the essays and stories below.
This project documents Bubu music and its communities in northern Sierra Leone, capturing the people and everyday moments that keep the tradition alive. Rooted in Abdul Hamid Kanu's Temne heritage, it engages with music as a living practice connecting generations through sound, memory, and belonging.
There are no people in Lidudumalingani’s images, but there are ghosts everywhere. The dead haunt suburban sidewalks, highways, city parks, rivers, bridges, dams, illegal dumpsites, hotel rooms, all where human lives collide. Sites of Mourning is primarily shot in Johannesburg and follows the trail of South African newspaper reports.
By one estimate, South Africa leads in femicide rates, five times higher than the global average. These sombre images are focused on sites where women were either killed or dumped after being killed. Accompanied by ruminative captions by the photographer, Sites of Mourning serves as a monument to the women's lives.
Ada had been travelling on this road for far too long. Six hours must have passed already, and she was still in the tightly packed, overly warm bus. Even then, her excitement was high. Being in the bus that was taking her towards her hometown from the city made her giddy. The plan was to get home and drop her bags, then Cousin Justice would take her to the market to familiarise herself with the women there. After that they would walk around the village a little to see where she could set up a makeshift photo studio.
A small town in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria, Neni is a neighbouring community to Adazi-Ani, where Amarachi Nnoli’s photography project Anwuli: An Invitation to Joy is staged. For the project, Nnoli moves from home to home, her mobile studio in tow, making portraits of those who have consented to pose.
Amarachi Nnoli blends elements of studio photography to examine Igbo identity in Nigeria. Visiting Adazi-Ani, her paternal hometown in southeastern Nigeria, she uses portraiture to explore not only the image of a person, but as a vessel of culture, memory, and representation.
Tender Visions is a new cross-disciplinary commissioning program for photographers and writers based on the African continent, produced by Tender Photos and supported by funding from the Open Society Foundations. 13 photographers have been commissioned to produce new work within their communities, guided by predefined themes, and in collaboration with 26 writers, who are to write original creative or critical responses to the photographic projects.
In the last three months, Tender Photos has been proud to feature the work of our brilliant editorial fellows. Those features will continue next week. Today, I’d like to share some more about Tender Visions, our new commissioning project. When I launched the Tender Photo newsletter in 2022, my interest was in dialogues between photographers and the meanings and impact of their images.
From July 18 until September 2, you can view the work of these five photographers on a high-resolution QLED monitor at the What is Happening Here gallery in Amsterdam. During the day, the photographs are visible on the monitors, and in the evening, passersby can see them from the street in the windows of the gallery.
This past Wednesday, the first edition of the Editorial Fellowship came to an end. I was immensely pleased with the range of work featured, the perceptive writing of each fellow, and the engagement the photographs generated. I extend my thanks to Onotu David Onimisi, moshood, Zenas Ubere, Sibongakonke Mama, and Sana Ginwalla.
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Tender Photos supports photographers and visual storytellers on the African continent.
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