I was at a pub when I received an email asking if I would like to exhibit images at the Royal Albert Hall as part of Nitin Sawney’s Journeys festival. I had to reread the message a couple of times because I didn't have my glasses with me. I then Googled Nitin Sawney’s name to confirm that he was indeed the same person whose music I had been listening to and loving since 1999.
I was asked to curate a selection of images that resonated with the themes of migration and identity. This is why the images we had taken of the Africa Advocacy Community in London immediately came to mind. The project was titled "Unheard Voices," a title chosen by the community for reasons that those two words make very clear.
"Unheard Voices" originally aimed to shed light on healthcare inequalities for the African diaspora in London. However, the project's focus evolved to encompass a broader range of themes that the community grapples with, including migration, identity, tradition, FGM, HIV, isolation, and stigma.
The Africa Advocacy Foundation’s community came together to make this project possible in a way we hadn’t experienced before, they appeared in all of the images themselves, catering on the day of the shoot and bringing their own props and wardrobe. It was a rare shoot that delivered results beyond our expectations. It had always been an impossible task for us to create something that looks as good as it does in your head, but this time it was the opposite, what we created together far exceeded what we had imagined.
For this work we were awarded Portrait Photography Of The Year by Le Prix de la Photographie de Paris. The exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall runs from Oct 17th - Nov 17th. The images are displayed in the Amphi corridor that arcs around the main stage area.
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