Few in-depth books address photography on the African continent. This is precisely the aim of this project: to bring together a panel of specialists, historians, curators, and journalists, and to republish in a print edition some of the content from a pioneering website dedicated to the dissemination of photographic practices in Africa. 

“Afrique in Visu" is a participatory platform for exchanges about the photography profession in Africa, launched in 2006 in Mali by Jeanne Mercier and Baptiste de Ville d’Avray. With a hundred regular contributors (photographers, journalists, critics), it serves as a living archive and a creative laboratory focused on photographic practices in Africa. It connects image professionals from across the continent, regardless of their nationalities, affiliations, or origins, and promotes contemporary creation to facilitate the exchange of expertise around imagery. There is no ranking or any attempt to claim the existence of a history of African photography. The sole guiding principle is a territory beyond its land or maritime borders: Africa. It encompasses the stories of a continent through its photographers who seek to break free from, surpass, and subvert all the images and stereotypes associated with it. 

Table of contents

« Africa Is Not an Island » introduction by Jeanne Mercier and Baptiste de Ville d’Avray

AFRICA ON DISPLAY
Essay by Erika Nimis « So many Photographic Histories Remain to be Written »
Follow-up of a series of thematic and monographic articles from the archives of Afrique in visu

COLLECTIVE FICTION
Essay by Olivia Marsaud « Photographs and Fictions - Experimentation »
Followed by a series of thematic and monographic articles from the archives of "Afrique in visu"

DAY BY DAY LET ME DREAM MY FUTURE
Essay by Simon Njami : « From l’Ethography to photography »
Followed by a series of thematic and monographic articles from the archives of "Afrique in visu"

PORTFOLIOS (Nicola Lo Calzo, Camille Millerand, Baudouin Mouanda)

Map
Conclusion by François Cheval