Thandiwe Muriu
Thandiwe Muriu, born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, discovered photography at 14 with her father’s Nikon. Self-taught in a country without formal photography schools, she turned professional by 17 and shot her first solo ad campaign by 23. By 2019, she was photographing for top East African companies.
As the only woman in Kenya’s male-dominated advertising photography scene, Thandiwe quickly explored themes like gender, tradition, and self-perception, leading to her breakthrough Camo series. Her work, blending vibrant African textiles with surreal, unmanipulated photography, redefines identity and female empowerment.
Though early in her artistic journey, Thandiwe Muriu’s work has already been acquired by major private and public collections, such as Fondation Gandur, the UHODA collection, and the Pigozzi collection, among others. Her pieces are also held by museum board members from institutions like MoMA, Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Pérez Art Museum.
She is currently exhibited at Museum Folkwang (Germany) and the Venice Biennale at the official collateral exhibition "Passengers in transit".
Sesse Elangwe
Sesse Elangwe, born on February 25, 1994, in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, is originally from the Southwest region. A passion for drawing from a young age led him to join "Le Crayon de D'jino," a six-year art program sponsored by the Breweries of Cameroon. After earning a BSc in Political Science from the University of Buea, he briefly taught before pursuing a full-time artistic career. His first exhibition, What About Us, took place in 2013, and since then, he has participated in over 20 international exhibitions, including The Last Picture Show in Paris (2018) and Concordant Transports in Texas (2021). He has also won several awards, including first prize in UNESCO's Patrimonito storyboard competition (2012) and second prize at the Mur Mur festival in Burkina Faso (2018).
Elangwe's work fuses African heritage with cubism, surrealism, and pop art, creating rich visual narratives that critically explore the Black experience in Africa. His compositions play with light and reality, often featuring characters with oversized eyes, drawing the viewer into a contemplative space. These eyes, central to his work, symbolize awakening and invite introspection on existential themes.
Elangwe’s art is part of prestigious private collections worldwide, including the Green Family Art Foundation (Dallas), W Art Foundation (Shanghai), Xitang Foundation (Beijing), and the Lester Marks Collection (Houston), among others.
Hyacinthe Ouattara
Born in 1981 in Burkina Faso, Hyacinthe Ouattara is a self-taught plastic artist. After several experiences in workshops, he trained in drawing. He began to represent the human body in a dreamlike, ghostly and childlike way, before focusing his work on the anatomy of cellular tissues through « human maps » .
Material, texture and colours are of great importance in his work. His way of painting is predominantly spontaneous and gestural, while his installations often play with the theme of the suspension between balance and imbalance. His twisted textile sculptures-inspired by organic forms-allow him to reflect on the concept of memory, whilst questioning the ambivalences between appearance and disappearance, and intimacy and identity.
His works have been successfully exhibited worldwide including the official selection of 2022 Dakar Biennale and 2022 Kinshasa Biennale.