Anesu Chikumba
In 2025, I began examining a question that sits at the centre of much of our work at Unpublished Africa, which is what empowerment for African visual storytellers and photographers actually looks like in practice.
Many organisations in the creative sector run programmes and initiatives that support artists. While we do the same, I wanted to understand whether these efforts create short moments of visibility or contribute to longer pathways into the creative economy. The distinction matters as temporary visibility does not shift systems.
To explore this, we posed a simple but direct question to women photographers during Women’s Month: “I’d be empowered if…”
What began as a prompt for reflection developed into both an exhibition and a research initiative. The responses informed our 2025 women’s month research paper, Unlocking True Empowerment for African Women in Photography, which examines structural barriers affecting women photographers across the continent. These include barriers to entry, barriers to professional growth, access to platforms, financial sustainability, and the wider institutional dynamics shaping the field.
What the African women photographers actually said they need was rarely a single grant or opportunity. It was access to platforms, training, networks, income, and the freedom to tell their own stories.
At Unpublished Africa, our work with photographers is not only about photography itself as it also serves as a lens through which we examine the wider African creative ecosystem. This is particularly the early-stage pathways available to emerging visual storytellers for which we have supported creatives in more than 25 African countries to date. The research therefore situates photographers within a broader discussion around infrastructure, opportunity, and access.
The paper also references organisations working to support women photographers globally and across the continent, including initiatives such as Black Women Photographers and African Women in Photography, highlighting how collective efforts are helping reshape access and representation. These organisations are not competitors but nodes in an ecosystem that works best when its parts connect rather than exist in isolation.
In 2026, we built on these insights with the second iteration of the I’d Be Empowered If exhibition. This is our first women’s month exhibition to be presented in person and it expands the conversation by bringing together women photographers from Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Egypt, and presenting their work within a public programme that combines exhibition, dialogue, and research engagement.
The exhibition is currently on view at Baraza Media Lab in Nairobi and marks the first time this we have held an exhibition on the East African circuit. The curatorial team includes Namukolo Siyumbwa , Unpublished Africa’s Zambia lead, with operational support from Jorge Dachala, our Nairobi lead. Both are alumni of our Creative Business Studio professional development programme. The opening included a discussion with Neema Mungai and Clara Komeit examining how empowerment is defined within creative practice and what structural support photographers need to build sustainable careers.
Importantly, three of the photographers participating in this iteration are exhibiting publicly for the first time, which reflects a core part of our work: designing entry points that enable emerging storytellers to move from private practice into public platforms. First exhibitions function as professional passports as they signal credibility, build confidence, and open doors that do not open otherwise.
Our exhibitions function as more than presentation spaces. They are programming-led platforms that surface lived experiences, test ideas emerging from our studies, and connect photographers with wider networks of institutions, funders, and collaborators. The works presented reflect issues photographers identified directly: income stability, commissioning opportunities, intellectual property protection, and institutional recognition.
Through our research papers and public programming, we aim to contribute to a growing body of knowledge around the creative economy in Africa, particularly around early-career infrastructure and structural access for visual storytellers.
We are also increasingly interested in collaborations with researchers, cultural institutions, and organisations looking to explore the intersection of visual storytelling, cultural infrastructure, and creative economies. This includes opportunities to:
- Partner on primary and applied research drawing on our longitudinal work with photographers across the continent
- Contribute network data and field insights from our network of visual storytellers spanning more than 25 African countries
- Curate and produce photography exhibitions for conferences, institutions, and public programmes
- Participate in conversations around cultural policy and creative sector development — particularly at the intersection of visual storytelling, gender equity, and early-career creative infrastructure
While I don’t have all the answers, the four years of of building Unpublished Africa has made me certain that empowerment requires repetition. The same photographer building on previous experiences, gaining confidence incrementally, accessing layered opportunities over time has more impact on a career that a once-off intervention.
My work building Unpublished Africa from a Zimbabwe-based platform into a pan-African organisation has been rewarding, though not without its challenges. Creating sustainable pathways in the creative sector requires collaboration across many actors.
We are grateful to Cynthia and the team at Baraza Media Lab for generously hosting this exhibition and supporting the continuation of this work.
Also thank you to ART AFRICA Magazine for sharing about the second iteration of I’d Be Empowered If… .
If you are working in research, cultural programming, or institutional partnerships and are interested in collaborating, you can reach me on LinkedIn ( Anesu Chikumba ) or at [email protected] . I would welcome the conversation.
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Written by
Creative Economy Practitioner | Building pathways for African visual storytellers | Founder, Unpublished Africa
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