Joana Choumali by Richard Young
Joana Choumali
African photographer
Joana Choumali is an award-winning photographer from Côte d’Ivoire who incorporates embroidery into her work to explore identity and diversity within different African cultures.
In Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Joana has exhibited at the Museum of Civilizations, the Donwahi Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Rotonde des Arts, and Palais de la Culture. She has also exhibited her work in Amsterdam, Paris, and Cape Town. Her book HAABRE was published and edited in Johannesburg in 2016.
Joana won the 2019 Prix Pictet international photography award for her series Ҫa va alles (It will be ok), which features photographs taken three weeks after the Grand-Bassam terror attack in 2016. She focuses on how Ivorian people deal with trauma and mental health issues, with the embroidery over these photographs acting as a symbol of hope and resilience, which flows through the series.
Most recently, Joana’s series AWOULABA/TAILLE FINE was featured in Fotografiska’s exhibition Nude (2021), which brings together work by thirty groundbreaking contemporary women artists.
