Eric-Gyamfi-justlike us-2

Creative Conversations/digital: Eric Gyamfi with Oluremi C. Onabanjo

Wednesday, February 24 | 6PM 

FotoFest is pleased to present a conversation between artist Eric Gyamfi and curator and scholar of photography, Oluremi C. Onabanjo. Held in conjunction with the exhibition Public Life: Distance and Diaspora, this conversation will focus on Gyamfi’s photographic work including his series Just Like Us, a documentary project that examines queer life in Ghana while challenging the notion of queer images. In addition to discussing Gyamfi’s work, the guests will discuss the role of African photography and art as it relates to the photographic condition, pulling examples from their respective practices to highlight the ways in which photography is used to capture, circulate, and comment on social issues, cultural events, and political movements in news media, in art spaces, and online spaces.

About the guests
Eric Gyamfi obtained a BA in Economics and Information Studies at the University of Ghana in 2014. He is currently pursuing an MFA at the Department of Painting and Sculpture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Gyamfi was a fellow at the Photographers’ Master Class in Khartoum, Sudan in 2016; in Nairobi, Kenya in 2017; and in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2018. He was an invited participant in the Nuku Studio Photography Workshops in 2016 and in the World Press Photo West African Masterclass in 2017 and is a recipient of the 2016 Magnum Foundation Fund. Gyamfi lives and works in Accra, Ghana, where he is a member of the Nuku Studio, a collective of visual storytellers dedicated to reporting on issues around Africa and beyond. He is the winner of the 13th Foam Paul Huf Award, which is awarded annually by an international jury to talented photographers under the age of thirty-five. Eric Gyamfi: Fixing Shadows opened at Foam, Amsterdam, in December 2019.

Oluremi C. Onabanjo is a curator and scholar of photography and the arts of Africa. A member of the curatorial team for the Hamburg Triennial of Photography (2022), she lectures internationally on photography and curatorial practice, and in 2019 was a Visiting Critic in the Department of Fine Arts at UPenn. The former Director of Exhibitions for The Walther Collection, Onabanjo has curated and co-organized exhibitions in Africa, Europe, and North America. In 2017 she co-curated Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography, and edited its accompanying publication (Steidl), which was shortlisted for an ICP Infinity Award in Critical Writing and Research (2018) and named “One of the Best Photo Books of 2017” by The New York Times. Onabanjo’s writing has been published by Aperture, Autograph ABP, The Museum of Modern Art, The New Yorker, The Photobook Review, RISD Museum's Manual, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Tate Etc, and Steidl, amongst others. She is at work on a doctorate in Art History at Columbia University, and holds an MSc in Visual, Material, and Museum Anthropology and a BA in African Studies from Columbia University.

Image: Eric Gyamfi, Henry, Alex, Oliver, Mensah, and Yaw hang out on a Sunday on the way to a chop bar for a happy hour they organized the day before, Henry’s friend Adwoa and Ivy were married. From the series Just Like Us, 2016–19. Courtesy of the artist and Open Society Foundation.