Uche Okpa-Iroha at Plat(t)form Portfolio Review [Winterthur]
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. Nigerian photographer, researcher and curator Uche Okpa-Iroha has been invited to attend this year’s event, and will be in Switzerland from 6-11 September 2023.
BIOGRAPHY
Uche Okpa-Iroha is the founder and director of the Lagos-based informal photography school, The Nlele Institute. He is also a founding member of the Nigerian photography group known as the Blackbox Photography Collective and a founding member of the Invisible Borders Trans-African photography travel group in 2009. He co-founded the photography and video art night of projections – FOTOPARTY Lagos and the Lagos Portfolio Review. Uche is also the founder of Lagos Open Range Exhibition Project. Uche is doctoral student at the Northwestern University Evanston Illinois (USA) with interests in historic and current modes and theories of representation. His research also focuses on artistic responses to the transatlantic dislocation/relocation of Africans (pre-slavery and now) to the Americas and Europe. This continues conceptual themes explored in his photography project “The Plantation Boy”. Uche has been twice winner of the Grand Prix Seydou Keita Award from Bamako Encounters with his “Under Bridge Life” and “The Plantation Boy” projects in 2009 and 2015 respectively. Other awards include the Jean Paul Blachere prize in 2009 and the Callanan Excellence in Teaching Award by Center Santa Fe, New Mexico USA in 2022. Uche is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (2011- 2012).
(Cover photo: CCA, Lagos)
