On March 5, 2026, The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University hosted the online conversation “From Lagos to Bamako: Biennales and Global Conversations in African Photography.” The webinar explored the influential role of the Rencontres de Bamako (Bamako Encounters)—Africa’s longest-running photography biennale—in shaping artistic exchange, professional networks, and critical discourse surrounding contemporary photography across Africa and its diaspora.
Conceived and presented by Uche Okpa-Iroha, the Block’s 2026 Curatorial Graduate Fellow, the program examined how the Bamako Encounters has functioned not only as a major exhibition platform but also as a catalyst for new institutions, festivals, and collaborations across the continent. Since its founding in 1994, the biennale has brought together photographers, curators, and scholars from across Africa and the diaspora. Okpa-Iroha reflected on his own experience participating in Bamako and described how the biennale helped launch artistic careers, foster transnational networks, and inspire artist-led initiatives such as the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Project.
The presentation traced connections between the biennale and the emergence of festivals and educational programs including LagosPhoto Festival, Addis Foto Fest, and artist-run initiatives like The Nlele Institute in Lagos—platforms through which African photographers have built their own institutions and archival practices.
Responding to Okpa-Iroha’s presentation, curator and cultural producer Oyindamola (Fakeye) Faithful reflected on the growing shift toward African-centered perspectives within photography discourse. Rather than positioning the continent as an object of observation, she emphasized how festivals and biennales across Africa now enable artists, curators, and audiences to debate aesthetics, politics, and representation from within their own cultural contexts.
Photographer Obasola Bamigbola spoke to how contemporary photographers are reclaiming the authority to define visual languages—working across photography, performance, installation, and archives to tell stories rooted in local histories, oral traditions, and cultural memory. He described photography as a vessel for transmitting knowledge across generations, connecting contemporary practice with historical archives and lived experience.
The conversation also addressed practical realities: the importance of mentorship networks, workshops, and residencies for emerging photographers, alongside ongoing challenges around funding, institutional inequalities, and access to archives. As Okpa-Iroha concluded, platforms like the Bamako Encounters remain generative precisely because they bring artists and institutions into direct contact—creating conditions for new collaborations and ways of working that extend well beyond the biennale itself.
About the Speakers
Uche Okpa-Iroha
Uche Okpa-Iroha is the 2026 Block Museum Curatorial Graduate Fellow and a doctoral student in Art History at Northwestern University. A photographer and educator, he is founder and director of the Lagos-based photography school The Nlele Institute and a founding member of both the Blackbox Photography Collective and the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Project. Okpa-Iroha has twice received the Grand Prix Seydou Keïta Award at the Bamako Encounters for his photographic projects Under Bridge Life (2009) and The Plantation Boy (2015). His work explores archives, memory, and the politics of representation in African photography.
Oyindamola (Fakeye) Faithful
Oyindamola (Fakeye) Faithful is a curator, learning and participation producer, and consultant focused on cross-cultural collaboration and arts-based learning. She currently serves as Acting Managing Director of Res Artis, the global network for artists’ residencies. Faithful previously served as Executive and Artistic Director of the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Lagos and is Education Director of the Àsìkò Art School, a roving Pan-African residency and learning program. Her curatorial projects include the Lagos Biennial, Passengers in Transit (La Biennale di Venezia collateral event, 2024), and the 14th Bamako Encounters.
Obasola Bamigbola
Obasola Bamigbola is a photographer and visual storyteller whose work explores African spirituality, cultural identity, and social narratives. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Rencontres de Bamako, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, PhotoVogue Festival, and the John & June Allcott Gallery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bamigbola’s practice combines photography, research, and education, and he frequently leads workshops and collaborative projects that engage questions of history, identity, and community storytelling.
Header Image: Nlele Institute Lagos offsite exhibition at the Bamako Encounters Whither I Stand and The Trajectory of Vision Bamako, Mali. 2015
