A mesmerizing continent-spanning survey of the most dynamic scenes in contemporary African
photography and an introduction to the creative figures who are making it happen. Africa
State of Mind gathers together the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across
Africa including both the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. It is both a summation of new
photographic practice from the last decade and an exploration of how contemporary photographers
from the continent are exploring ideas of ?Africanness' to reveal Africa to be a psychological
space as much as a physical territory - a state of mind as much as a geographical place.
Dispensing with the western colonial view of Africa in purely geographic or topographic terms
Ekow Eshun presents Africa State of Mind in four thematic parts: Hybrid Cities Inner
Landscapes Zones of Freedom and Myth and Memory. Each theme introduced by a text by Eshun
presents selections of work by a new wave of African photographers who are looking both outward
and inward: capturing life among the sprawling cities and multitudinous conurbations of the
continent turning the legacy of the continent's history into the source of resonant new myths
and dreamscapes and exploring questions of gender sexuality and identity. Each of the
photographers seeks to capture the experience of what it means and how it feels to live in
Africa today.
