Les Rencontres de Bamako – African Biennal of Photography has announced the winners of its prestigious photography prizes, along with three honorable mentions. Maheder Haileselassie Tadesse from Ethiopia was awarded the Seydou Keita Grand Prize for her series Between Yesterday and Tomorrow. Wilfried Vanie, known as Willow Evann, from Côte d’Ivoire/France, received the Bisi Silva Award for his work Les Tirallés, while Nigerian photographer Victor Adewale was honored with the third prize for his project Ẹbí Ọlọ́kadà.

In addition to the selected winners, the jury has awarded honorary mentions to Seyba Keita (Mali), Dior Thiam (Senegal-Germany), and Hisham Benohoud (Maroc).

The theme for the 14th edition is KUMA: Speech, Silence, and Noise. The 30 artists on display have been invited to explore new forms, experiment with dialogues between word and image, and give visual life to moments of speech, eloquence, anger, hope, recollection, silence, cacophony, and noise.

Maheder Haileselassie Tadesse – Seydou Keita Grand Prize

In her series Between Yesterday and Tomorrow Tadesse reflects on growing up with Ethiopia’s history through her father’s books, highlighting the country’s pride in its 3,000-year heritage and resistance to colonization. By blending 19th-century European archives with her personal and family images, the artist symbolizes the overlap of time and memory while acknowledging Western influence on Ethiopia.

Willow Evann – Bibi Silva Award

Les Tirailleurs honors forgotten histories, focusing on African Tirailleurs who fought in the French colonial army but were overlooked. Using wood—symbolizing resilience—and engraved portraits, Wilfried Vanie seeks to restore their memory and highlight their role in Western history. The work also celebrates pre-colonial African Kingdoms, depicting the continent’s cultural and political richness before colonization. The fragmented wood blocks symbolize how history scattered these narratives, yet also offer a chance to reconnect and preserve them. The author emphasizes wood as a “living witness” to history, inviting reflection on the need to preserve neglected stories to better understand the present.

Victor Adewale Ẹbí Ọlọ́kadà – Thrid Prize

Ẹbí Ọlọ́kadà documents the Okada riders in Mushin, Lagos, who face government harassment through bans that threaten their livelihoods. The project title translates “Okada Family”, being the Nigerian slang for motorcycles. Inspired by the author’s father, a former Okada rider, Victor Adewale explores the personal, familial and societal complexities of the routes these riders travel. Through portraiture and the transformation of these routes into copper patterns and sculptures, the project looks at modes of resistance by the Okada community in Lagos, highlights the connection between the riders, the copper, and the earth, while reflecting broader experiences shared across Africa and Asia.

Honorable Mentions

Seyba Keita‘s work explores the silence imposed on women in Malinké society, highlighting the paradox of women being seen as the backbone of families while often being silenced. The work prompts a reflection on whether this silence is rooted in the belief that women are too fragile to bear the consequences of speaking out, questioning the cultural reasons behind their marginalization in communication and decision-making.

Photographed in 2020 in the Lompoul region of Senegal, Dior Thiam‘s Wandering Desert Traces: Do You Remember the Sand series examines the desert’s connection to memory through an immersive installation of semi-transparent fabric pieces, symbolizing the desert’s fluid, unstable nature. The veils invite visitors to touch or move around them, creating a sense of movement and intimacy, as they spread across the space like sand. The installation highlights themes of obstacles, mobility, and permeability, portraying the desert as a liminal space defined by both permanence and change, shaped by climate change and desertification. The shifting sand dunes of Lompoul evoke a dreamlike atmosphere, reflecting impermanence and prompting contemplation on the transient nature of time and memory.

Through Résistance à l’Oubli (Resistance to Oblivion) John Moussa Kalapo captures a decade of ethnic and political conflict in Mali. The black-and-white series depicts the fragile silhouettes of victims and perpetrators, evoking the suffering and resilience of the Malian people amidst tensions between the Peuls and Dogons, and the jihadist threat. The work calls for collective healing, reconciliation, and highlights the shared humanity of oppressors and oppressed. Kalapo’s art reflects on intercommunal violence and political manipulation, offering hope for peace and restoration. As a witness to Mali’s fractured past, he advocates for cultural resistance and the reclaiming of memory as paths to a more just future.

Artists

Victor Adewale (Nigeria), Bernard Akoi-Jackson (Ghana), Héla Ammar (Tunisia), Nabil Boutros (Egypt), Cédrick-Isham Calvados (Guadeloupe), Caroline Déodat (France/Mauritius), Jeannette Ehlers (Denmark/Trinidad and Tobago), Willow Evann (France/Ivory Coast), Mounir Fatmi (Morocco), Ismaël Mahamoudou Laouli Illa (Niger), Arnold Tagne Fokam (Cameroon), Zara Julius (South Africa), Massow Ka (Senegal), Kevin Kabambi (R. D. Congo), Seyba Keita (Mali), John Kalapo (Mali), M’hammed Kilito (Morocco), Cynthia R. Matonhodze (Zimbabwe), Primo Mauridi (R.D. Congo), Mariam Niaré (Mali), Osakpolor Omoregie (Nigeria), Amine Oulmakki (Morocco), Marc Posso (Gabon), Arilala Ophélia Ralamboson (Madagascar), Nuno Silas (Mozambique), Kanni Sissoko (Mali) and Yvon Ngassam (Cameroon), Maheder Haileselassie Tadese (Ethiopia), Dior Thiam (Germany/Senegal), Sethembiso Zulu (South Africa).

About Rencontres de Bamako/Bamako Encounters – The African Biennal of Photography

Established in 1994, the Rencontres de Bamako – African Biennial of Photography, the first international event dedicated to African photography and video on the continent, has become, over its 30 years of existence and 14 editions, an essential event in the global circuit of contemporary art. As a platform for discovery, exchange, and visibility, the Biennial is a major and essential venue for revealing African photographers and the diaspora, a time for exchange and sharing with the Malian public and professionals from around the world, and has been playing a key role in advancing the careers of many artists and curators on the international stage.

Rencontres de Bamako 14

Artistic Direction: assana Igo Diarra and
Cursatorial Team: Nadine Hounkpatin (Benin), Manthia Diawara (Mali), Soufiane Er-Rahoui (Morocco), Oyindamola (Fakeye) Faithfull (Nigeria), and Patrick Mudekereza (DRC)

The scenography for the 30th edition of the Rencontres de Bamako () was designed by the Cape Verdean-Italian duo Ramos Castellano Arquitectos.

Rencontres de Bamako, 16 November 2024 – 16 Janaury 2025.