Exposición: Dakar. Cuerpo a cuerpo

This award is made up from an exhibition (which Casa África now produces and hosts), which consists of a selection of work carried out up till now by the award-winning artist and the publication of a monographic book on her work, which will form part of a larger collection through the eyes of some women who participate and have participated in this biennial exhibition.

Casa África's prize serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it seeks to make visible photographs taken by African women, hence the prize is awarded to female photographers and on the other hand, tries to place African photography in the global context, i.e. it aims to place African photographs on the world photography map without falling into the clichés of photographic language or existing stereotypes. In short, that this photography is not understood as part of the rest but of all of them.

The pictures by Elise Fitte-Duval that we display on this occasion are portraits of human beings in their daily struggle in this metropolis that is Dakar. Convinced of the social function of photographs just as much as documents, Elise feels a responsibility to record the reality around her. As a rigorous reporter she tells us and alerts us to what happens in that city in full expansion and movement, goes to meet the people, she travels to the suburbs of the city, where no one goes.

The Elise's images fundamentally aim to give visibility to invisible lives and denounce the conditions of life of thousands of people abandoned to luck by the public and political authorities of this great city that is Dakar. Elise enters the guts of this city, she tells us of the daily life of its inhabitants, but above all shares the strength and determination of its citizens with the rest of us because she understands that photography is not so much reproducing but sharing.