Trained as a journalist, I quickly turned to photography, in which I have always had a strong interest. The desire was too strong to resist. In 2015, I started researching the techniques and basics of photography thanks to my friends who were already photographers in my hometown of Goma, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I didn't want to stop there. I decided to learn the techniques of documentary photography. Influenced by my personal history where my community, especially my family, had a different view of the practice of photography, which for them would only be for men. I saw something else instead. With more optimism and commitment, I felt that I could express myself through my artistic practice when nobody really believed in it around me. Today, after various training courses and professional meetings in which I have taken part in the country and elsewhere, a common thread that I intend to explore has emerged organically.
My work is essentially oriented towards the search for the image of the woman. Photography is one of the communication channels I use to enter into a perfect dialogue with my community, and the whole world. In my imaginary world, I imagine and embody myself in the characters found in my various photographs in order to present or tell another facet of the woman with a kind of courage, energy, determination... commitment, strength. The idea in my work is to change the traditional place of women in my community. My photographs parallel the image of the ancient woman and the model of the contemporary woman. Women, the young girls, find a predominant place in the content of my work which sometimes leads it into a world that I identify as imaginary. Through staging, I reproduce different in my own way historical situations linked to women, the history of my community, of Africa, and of the world. These shots result from my research on problems intrinsically linked to the role of women and more widely to the evolution of the world and of humanity.
Pamela Tulizo (based in Goma, DRC) After initially studying journalism, Pamela graduated from the Market Photo Workshop school of photography in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2019. Her work focuses primarily on expressions of female identity. In her series entitled Double Identity, which comprises 13 self-portraits, the photographer embodies an African woman torn between her own sense of self and the role attributed to her by a globalized society. She is a contributor to Agence France-Presse and was artist in residence in 2020 in Wiels, Brussels, Belgium. The same year she won the Dior Photography & Visual Arts Award for Young Talents 2020. Recent exhibitions include: Future Genealogies, 6th Lubumbashi Biennale, D.R. Congo (2019).