Samuel Fosso

On February 5, 2014, amidst looting after sectarian violence, Fosso's home studio in Bangui, containing his complete archive, was ransacked. This was discovered by chance by photojournalist Jerome Delay, who, along with fellow photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale, and Peter Bouckaert (Emergency Director at Human Rights Watch), rescued the majority of its contents, estimated at 20,000 negatives and 150 to 200 prints, though Fosso's cameras were stolen. Fosso was in Paris at the time.

In 2008, he unveiled one of his most celebrated works, “African Spirits”. Fosso’s theatrical self portraits pay tribute to fourteen political, intellectual, and cultural figures from Pan-African historical movements and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. The photographs are made of gelatin silver print mounted on dibond and sized 162.8 by 122 centimeters. Fosso unveiled African Spirits during the election of the first black president, Barack Obama. This was an important landmark in U.S. History, further expanding Fosso’s message of black empowerment and the celebration of black history.

He won the Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands in 2001.

In 1994 Fosso became known abroad when he won the first edition of African Photography Encounters in Bamako, Mali.

Fosso was born in Kumba, Cameroon, to Nigerian parents. He grew up in Afikpo, his ancestral home, until he had to flee to Bangui in the Central African Republic at the age of thirteen in 1972 in the wake of the Nigerian Civil War.

Fosso explores the idea of self-presentation and gender representation, experimenting with props, costumes, and poses in flamboyant 1970s fashion. For his self-portraits he used a delayed shutter release allowing Fosso up to ten seconds to pose for each photograph. He often used cloth backgrounds, in front of which he dressed up in costumes that varied greatly: authentic European costumes, African folk costumes, navy uniforms, karate keikogis, boxer shorts, and so on.

Samuel Fosso (born July 17, 1962) is a Cameroonian photographer who has worked for most of his career in the Central African Republic. His work includes using self-portraits adopting a series of personas, often commenting on the history of Africa. He is recognized as one of Central-Africa's leading contemporary artists.

Steve Nelson comments on the glamorous and nostalgic theme Fosso adopts after African Independence, the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of Black Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s. “African Spirits points to an exploration of Pan-Africanist identity grounded in the political ideals of the 1960s, which stressed a shared politics of struggle for black people worldwide.” Fosso’s famous self portraits celebrate and challenge concepts of Pan-African identity.