Lou Jones: The panAFRICAproject

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September 15, 2022, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm


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Thursday September 15, 2022
Online: 6-7pm CST

Until the obstacle of COVID19 my studio had been traveling several times a year with the intent of documenting the 54 countries of modern, contemporary Africa–country by country. Realizing that western media has habitually maligned the continent by only telling stories of conflict, poverty, pestilence & animals, I realized there was an opportunity to change the narrative. My experiences were quite different from what politicians, teachers & parents had told me. This was a form of neocolonialism & sought to obfuscate the raping of resources, culture, history & traditions.

Using the “universal language” of photography, www.panAFRICAproject.org could bypass the history books & newspaper stories that perpetually showed only the “irredeemable” aspects. With the advent of social media, we concentrate on the progress in industry, technology, music, medicine, infrastructure & ecology where Africa is becoming the fastest growing continent in the world. The mission is to give researchers, businesses, schools & institutions a compendium of relevant images for use to narrate current stories.

This overly ambitious long term effort uses local informed experts & communities to tell their own stories & investigates the people & places that are vetted by residents instead of the histories written by outsiders. We spend extended periods of time preparing, traveling & gaining access to representative communities & factions. Financially we have raised monies through grants, crowdfunding, book publishing, exhibitions & lectures.

We recently revived traveling & completed a very successful trip to Kenya which is the fifteenth country we have documented. Currently we are working on the second volume of the book series & planning our next journey.

-Lou Jones

Image: © Lou Jones

Admission: Free. Registration Required. 

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