Collective Energy: A Virtual Gathering is a virtual assembly of artists and intellectuals moderated by Adama Delphine Fawundu and Laylah Amatullah Barrayn. We will be discussing the global impact and need for photography collectives when it comes to women photographers.
Speakers: Aldeide Delgado Sarah Waiswa Verónica Sanchis Bencomo Beth Irũngũ
Moderators: Laylah Amatullah Barrayn Adama Delphine Fawundu
Location: Online
Presented by:
Supported by:
As part of the MFON Global Symposium, Collective Energy: A Virtual Gathering, is a virtual assembly of artists and intellectuals moderated by Adama Delphine Fawundu and Laylah Amatullah Barrayn. We will be discussing the global impact and need for photography collectives when it comes to women photographers.
Panelists:
Aldeide Delgado is a Cuban-born, Miami-based independent Latinx art historian and curator, founder & director of Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA). She has eight years of experience writing, curating, and presenting at art history forums centered around photography, including lectures at institutions such as the Tate Modern, The Clark Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), DePaul Art Museum, King’s College London, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and The New School. Delgado is a recipient of the 2023 Ellies Creator Award, 2019 Knight Arts Challenge award, the 2018 School of Art Criticism Fellowship by SAPS – La Tallera, and the 2017 Research and Production of Critic Essay Fellowship by TEOR/éTica. Delgado conceptualized the world’s first-ever feminist photography collective conference, WOPHA Congress: Women, Photography, and Feminisms (November 17-20, 2021). She publishes and curates from feminist and decolonial perspectives on crucial topics of the history of photography and abstraction within Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx contexts. She is also the author of “Becoming Sisters: Women Photography Collectives & Organizations” (2021). Prior to founding WOPHA, Delgado created the online feminist archive Catalog of Cuban Women Photographers, the first comprehensive survey of Cuban photography history highlighting women’s contributions from the nineteenth century to the present. She is an active member of PAMM’s International Women’s Committee and PAMM’s Latin American and Latinx Art Fund, US Latinx Art Forum, the Lucie Foundation Advisory Board, and the steering committees of the Feminist Art Coalition and Fast Forward: Women in Photography. Currently, she is pursuing an MA in Liberal Studies at Rutgers University.
Headshot credit: Aldeide Delgado. Photo by Gaby Ojeda. Courtesy WOPHA.
Sarah Waiswa is a Ugandan-born, Kenya-based award winning documentary and portrait photographer with an interest in exploring the New African Identity on the continent. With degrees in sociology and psychology, Sarah worked in a corporate position for a number of years but decided to pursue photography full-time. Sarah’s work explores social issues in Africa in a contemporary and non- traditional way.
Her work has been exhibited around the world, and most recently at the Africa Fashion exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Her photographs have been published in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the New York Times, among other publications and she has worked with brands such as Christian Dior and Chloe.
In 2021 she founded African Women in Photography, a non-profit organisation dedicated to elevating and celebrating the work of women and non-binary photographers from Africa.
In 2023, her passion for curatorial work led her to curate her first exhibition “Sisi Ni Hao” at the Goethe Institut in Nairobi funded by the Ford Foundation. The exhibition celebrated the unique perspectives of 12 East African women photographers on womanhood.
Verónica is a Spanish-Venezuelan photographer. She lived in Hong Kong for nearly six years where she contributed for different international media like; AFP, Bloomberg, Le Monde, Fortune, Monocle and Nature magazine amongst others. She recently relocated in New York.
In 2015, Veronica founded Foto Féminas – an online platform to promote the works of Latin American and Caribbean women photographers. For this, she has organized and produced photo exhibitions in Argentina, China, Guatemala, Peru, Chile and Mexico. In 2016, she started Foto Féminas’ library which was created to continue her mission to celebrate and archive the work of female Latin American photographers. The mobile library has been displayed and exhibited at different art institutions and festivals in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and New York.
Born in Kenya and raised between there and Kansas, Beth Wairimũ Irũngũ emigrated to the United States with her parents and sister, where she spent much of her life as a caregiver and homemaker. Passionate about nonprofit work and community service, Beth has devoted countless hours to supporting and advocating for families, women, and children. In 2020, Black Women Photographers was established to provide community and support to women photographers. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to increasing professional and paid opportunities for Black and African creatives around the world.
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn is a documentary photographer based in New York City. Her work has been supported with grants and fellowships from the International Women’s Media Foundation, Columbia University’s Institute for Research in African American Studies, and the Research Foundation of the City University of New York. She is a four-time recipient of the Community Arts Grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. Her projects have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, BBC, and OkayAfrica, among other publications. She has curated exhibitions at the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Port Authority of NY/NJ, and has given talks on her photography at Yale University, New York University, Howard University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She was recently an artist-in-residence at the Waaw Centre for Art and Design in Saint-Louis, Senegal. Barrayn is the founder and coeditor of Mfon: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora.
Photo Credit: Alex Bershaw
Adama Delphine Fawundu is a photographer and visual artist born in Brooklyn, NY to parents from Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea, West Africa. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University School of the Arts.
Ms. Fawundu has been documenting global hip-hop and urban youth culture for over twenty years. Her art re-imagines and glorifies the strength of African and Black diaspora culture and identities that continue to evolve, despite the social violence of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and colonialism.
Ms. Fawundu is a co-founder and author of the book and movement, MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora. She is currently an artist-in-resident at the Center for Book Arts in New York City. Her awards include the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Photography Grant, and the Brooklyn Arts Council Grant.
Ms. Fawundu’s works can be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Norton Museum of Art, Corridor Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, University of Maryland.
MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora is an independently published anthology edited by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Adama Delphine Fawundu. MFON features photographic works created by 118 African and Diasporic women artists representing 27 nations. It will soon be relaunched as an online platform. Our goal is to promote an international representative voice of women photographers from continental Africa and its diaspora.
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race.
In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions.
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Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
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Headquartered in the creative communities of Brooklyn, Brighton and Berlin, the MPB team includes trained camera experts and seasoned photographers and videographers who bring their passion to work every day to deliver outstanding service.
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