BASEL.- Image Afrique, the festival for contemporary African photography, will take place in Basel for the fifth time in September 2016. The three events around African photography are intended to stimulate discourse regarding the image of Africa. Entry is free.

Image Afrique is an annual festival for contemporary African photography that has been taking place since 2012. In 2016 the focus will be on a retrospective of ​POPCAP,​ the prize for contemporary African photography. The goal of all three events is to strengthen the position of African photography, promote talented people and to stimulate discourse regarding the image of Africa. Encounters between artists and the public, as well as networking with the international art scene, are also of fundamental importance.

Image Afrique 2016 will be presented in three parts:

1. Projection and Concert - Five Years of POPCAP​ | 1 September, public POPCAP ’16​ award ceremony in the presence of the artists, followed by a large-format, open air projection displaying a retrospective of all 25 outstanding works exhibited by POPCAP since 2012. The event location is the ​Holzpark Klybeck​ in Basel.

2. Photography Exhibition - ​Edition POPCAP​ | 2 – 17 September, public Gallery exhibition of Edition ​POPCAP​ complemented and counteracted by historic African photography taken from the archives of ​African Photography Initiatives​ in the ​Heuberg 24​ art space in Basel.

3. Symposium - Africa in the Photo Book​ | 3 September, public (in English) A symposium on the topic of ​Africa in the Photo Book ​ at the ​Basler Afrika Bibliographien.

IMAGE AFRIQUE ’16 The Three Events

1) Projection and Concert - Five Years of POPCAP
Date:​ 1 September 2016
The award ceremony for the five year anniversary of ​Image Afrique​ and ​POPCAP,​ the prize for contemporary African photography, will take place followed by a large-format, open air projection of all 25 outstanding works exhibited by ​POPCAP​ since 2012. The prize is aimed at photographers whose work is either produced in an African country or deals with a diaspora of an African country. This year’s five winning artists are all invited to attend the exhibition. The presentation will take place in a public space, allowing us to reach not only the art-conscious, but rather confront the general public with the image of Africa.

The winners of POPCAP ’16 are:
Nicolas Henry, ​France​ ​
Jason Larkin,​ England​
Sabelo Mlangeni,​ South Africa
Thom Pierce, ​Jersey Britain​
Julia Runge,​ Germany​ ​

Other exhibited artworks are from the following POPCAP winners:

Filipe Branquinho​, Mozambique|​ ​Zed Nelson​, United Kingdom|​ ​Tahir Carl Karmali​, Kenya|​ ​Zied Ben Romdhane​, Tunisia|​ ​Romaric Tisserand​, France|​ ​Joana Choumali​, Ivory Coast|​ ​Ilan Godfrey​, South Africa|​ ​Léonard Pongo​, Belgium|​ ​Anoek Steketee​, The Netherlands|​ ​Eefje Blankevoort​, Canada|​Patrick Willocq​, France| ​David Rengel,​ ​Spain| ​Álvaro Laiz,​ Spain|​ ​Dillon Marsh​, South Africa|​ ​Cristina de Middel​, Spain|​ ​Alexia Webster​, South Africa|​ ​Graeme Williams​, South Africa|​ ​Guillaume Bonn​, France| Nabil Boutros​, France|​ ​Namsa Leuba​, Switzerland|​ ​Adolphus Opara​, Nigeria|​ ​Paolo Patrizi​, Italy

2) Edition POPCAP Photography Exhibition
Date:​ 2 - 17 September 2016
Alongside the open air projection, Image Afrique 2016 will also display photographs from ​Edition POPCAP​ at the ​Heuberg 24​ art space in celebration of the season opening of Basel’s galleries. The exhibition comprises 13 works from past winners of the POPCAP prize for contemporary African photography. The photographic series will be complemented and counteracted by historic photographic works taken from the archives of African Photography Initiatives​ in Basel. This combination of contemporary and historic images should stimulate exciting dialogue between the images, and in turn shake up more traditional and limited representations of Africa. The exhibition will comprise roughly 100 works from Congo, South Africa, Kenya, Cameroon, Italy, Tunisia, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Egypt.

The exhibited works are from: Thom Pierce,​ ​Jersey Britain| ​Julia Runge,​ Germany | ​Filipe Branquinho​, Mozambique|​ ​Tahir Carl Karmali​, Kenya|​ ​Zied Ben Romdhane​, Tunisia|​ ​Romaric Tisserand​, France|​ ​Ilan Godfrey​, South Africa| Léonard Pongo​, Belgium|​ ​Dillon Marsh​, South Africa|​ ​Graeme Williams​, South Africa|​Guillaume Bonn​, France|​ ​Nabil Boutros​, France|​ ​Paolo Patrizi​, Italy