Meet Four Women Pushing Ivorian Art Forward Through Photography
Akobs
Photo: Courtesy of Akobs
Photo: Courtesy of Akobs
Photo: Courtesy of Akobs
Ivorian Marie Jeanne Akobe, better known as Akobs, is the food, product, and interior photographer whose postgraduate study of marketing affirmed the importance of imagery as a means of selling. Where day-to-day life inspires her street photography, her visits to markets inspire her knack for flat lay food and product photography. A jack of many trades or rather a hustler, she even creates enticing visuals that make onlookers want to visit restaurants and buy homes for sale. Her approach is one centered around stylizing things typically consumed in her West African home but that aren't easy to put on display like galettes. It's a response to a problem prevalent all around the continent. Furthermore, her penchant for colors in the distinct niche she's carved for herself is making people stop and take notice.
Aïcha Fall
Ivorian-Senegalese Aïcha Fall is an iPhone photographer and autodidactPhoto: Courtesy of Aïcha Fall
Photo: Courtesy of Aïcha Fall
Photo: Courtesy of Aïcha Fall
Ivorian-Senegalese Aïcha Fall is an iPhone photographer and autodidact whose work bridges a gap between her identity, her culture, and her traditions. She's enamoured with such themes as the Black woman and the beauty of the communities she calls home. There lies great strength and originality in the whimsical scenes she puts on display. A creative bursting with ideas—more often than not, she uses things she scrappily finds around her to create magic. She excels at using very little to document that which surrounds her. Her work is also the result of spending copious amounts of time carefully observing. Beyond her website, social media provides her the perfect platform to tell her stories and brands like Vogue Italy are taking notice.
Noella Elloh
Noella Elloh is a visual artist and digital strategistPhoto: Courtesy of Noella Elloh
Photo: Courtesy of Noella Elloh
Photo: Courtesy of Noella Elloh
Noella Elloh is the visual artist and digital strategist behind "Weaving Generations", a fall 2019 photo series that poetically tackles the issue of environmental ruin in Côte d'Ivoire.
In 2016, after obtaining her master's in environmental communication at the University of Quebec at Montreal, she returned to Abidjan and set out to tell unwritten stories.
With her camera, she explores identity, heritage, and climate change so as to educate viewers about such things as how urbanization affects the livelihoods of modern-day fishermen. She creates what she calls visual poetry playing with light and color.
Saphir Niakadie
Ivorian-American Saphir Niakadie's work connects her homeland and the diaspora Photo: Courtesy of Saphir Niakadie
Photo: Courtesy of Saphir Niakadie
Photo: Courtesy of Saphir Niakadie
When Saphir Niakadie was younger, she bought a camera as a means of replicating what she saw—with age came a voice more focused on concepts and storytelling rooted in exploring the human experience. Today, her fervor for human emotions nurtures how she effectively makes the viewers of her work experience what she captures. Saphir's work connects her homeland and the diaspora—it's black bodies in motion and poignant portraiture aimed at creating a new African narrative. She has taken this new narrative with her in partnerships with Keds, DSW, and homegrown magazine, Milc, and has been featured in Nylon, Vogue, and on Blavity.
