Whilst hanging out in Zanzibar I met an interesting Belgian photographer by the name of Griet Hendrickx who has spent the last two years making images along the Swahili coast. I sometimes feel slightly wary about work produced by Western photographers in Africa, but after seeing a small selection of her work I'm looking forward to seeing her full set of images which will include some interesting portraits and stories she has collected along the way. There is an amazing fusion of cultures in Zanzibar and along the East Coast and I'd like to learn a lot more about Swahili culture.
Griet taught me a thing or two about travelling and had a very cool medium format camera of the likes I have never seen (a Plaubel Makina 670), but I did show her the best place to get a banana lassie!
Here is her short description of her work in progress which will be exhibited in Belgium and Zanzibar next May.
"The African continent is almost invariably portrayed as a source of poverty and misery. A personal project made out of belief that Africa is much more than these few minutes people get to see in the news."
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