Plat(t)form Portfolio Review is an annual event organised and hosted by the Fotomuseum Winterthur. Over a weekend-long programme, more than forty international photographers and artists present their work to the public and a team of experts. Each year Pro Helvetia invites guests from the international network – curators, directors from photography institutions or festivals, publishers of photobooks or photo magazines, photo critics – to attend the portfolio review programme as well as visit photography institutions in Zurich and engage in networking and professional exchange with the Swiss photography scene. Sarah Waiswa and Renée Akitelek Mboya are the two guests invited from our region, and will be in Zurich from 7-12 September 2022.

BIOGRAPHIES

Sarah Waiswa is Ugandan-born, Kenya-based documentary and portrait photographer with an interest in exploring the New African Identity on the continent. With degrees in sociology and psychology, Sarah’s work explores social issues in Africa in a contemporary and non-traditional way. Her photographs of people living with albinism and ballet dancing in the Kibera area of Nairobi have generated dialogue through their visual poetry. In 2015, she was awarded first place in the story and creative categories in the Uganda Press Photo Awards and second place in the Daily Life and portrait categories. In 2016 she was awarded the Discovery Award in Arles, France and in 2017 she was awarded the Gerald Kraak Award in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2018, she was named a Canon Brand Ambassador.

Her work has been exhibited around the world, most recently at the Bristol Photo Festival 2021 in collaboration with the Bristol Archives. Her photographs have been published in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the New York Times, among other publications and she has worked with brands such as Christian Dior and Chloe. Earlier this year she founded African Women in Photography, a non profit organisation dedicated to elevating and celebrating the work of women and non binary photographers from Africa.

Renée Akitelek Mboya is a writer, curator and filmmaker. Her custom is one that relies on biography and storytelling as a form of research and production. Renée is presently preoccupied with looking and speaking about images and the ways in which they are produced but especially how they have come to play a critical role as evidence of white paranoia, and as aesthetic idioms of racial violence. Renée works between Dakar and Nairobi and is a collaborative editor with the Wali Chafu Collective.