Staging Africa through its own lens in Shanghai

Eshun, 56, is the author of the photography book Africa State of Mind, a continent-wide survey of contemporary African photography. In 2022, he curated In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery in London, a landmark exhibition of visionary black artists exploring myth, science fiction, and Afrofuturism.

Eshun argued that historically, the prevailing images of Africa tend to be news imagery that focuses on conflict, famine, and crisis. "That's one take on Africa, and all that is true. The exhibition is not to deny the crisis but to say that it is not and cannot be the entire story of the continent. Here, we present 16 photographers who offer 16 takes on Africa set within the spectrum of Marvelous Realism."

The exhibition's title, Marvelous Realism, was inspired by Nigerian scholar Kole Omotoso, who coined the term. It refers to a unique perspective on reality in African literature and art where the boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary can blur, and the mundane is infused with elements of wonder and the unusual.