Editorial
Photo
MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora
Marina Dias Teixeira / Barbara Mastrobuono
19 Nov 2020, 5:44 pm
“MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora” is a seminal publication independently published by MFON, founded by documentary filmmaker Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and visual artist Adama Delphine Fawundu, and edited by Crystal Whaley. The anthology contains works from different genres created by more than 100 African and Diaspora artists, representing a total of 27 nations.
With the intention of promoting, on an international scale, the voice of photographers of African descent, MFON creates an intellectual dialogue bringing journalists, curators, documentarians and artists to discuss contemporary photography production. Their first publication, “Women Photographers of the African Diaspora”, is already sold out. Here, we publish twelve images that make up this anthology, to bring the Brazilian public closer to this very important content.
Follow these and other works of MFON in the SP-Foto Viewing Room.
Above: Ming Smith
"Coney Island" (detail), New York, 1972
All images used in this story are courtesy of MFON
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(1) Nydia Blas, from the series “The Girl Who Spun Gold”, New York, 2016; (2) Fati Abubakar, from the ongoing series “Bits of Borno”, Nigeria, 2015
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(3) Fatoumata Diabaté, from the series “Caméleon”, Senegal, 2015-2016; (4) Eman Helal “Juba the New Nation”, Southern Sudan, 2104; (5) Nina Robinson “Five men sit listening to their family and friends sing in the 12th Direct Mass Choir” USA, 2015
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(6) Eman-Helal “Morsy, the beginning and the end”, 2011; (7) Fanta Diop “Following a West African Tradition, Malian women give money to an expectant mother at her baby shower”, New York, 2017
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(8) Yodith Dammlash “Brothers”, Ethiopia, 2014; (9) Émilie Régnier “Danielle Babou”, Abidjan, 2014; (10) Angéle Etoundi Essamba “Palanqueras”, Colombia, 2010; (11) Samantha Box, from the series “Invisible: The Shelter, the Street”, New York, 2006
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Marina Dias Teixeira graduated in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of the Arts London (UAL). She has worked as part of Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, Sotheby’s Brazil and SP–Arte teams. Today, she is Project Coordinator at Act., art consulting bureau based in São Paulo. In parallel, she researches decolonial theories and the production by artists of the African Diaspora in the contemporary arts circuit, with a focus on black women. Since 2020, she collaborates for Casa Vogue Brazil, with a close look on black artists and their production.
Barbara Mastrobuono is an editor, translator and researcher. She has worked in publishing houses such as Editora 34 and Cosac Naify, and served as the editorial coordinator of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Among the titles she translated are “Tunga”, with text by Catherine Lampert; “Poesia Viva”, by Paulo Bruscky, with text by Antonio Sergio Bessa; and “Jogos para atores e não autores”, by Augusto Boal. She defended her master’s dissertation at the Department of Literary Theory at the University of São Paulo.
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