Joana Choumali

In 2019 she was awarded the Prix Pictet for her series Ça va aller (It will be OK).

Her 2014 series, Hââbré, The Last Generation, documents the last generation of scarified Africans.

Choumali used to be fascinated seeing people of different social origins proudly displaying their facial scarification across the Ivory Coast, but the practice is dying out. Choumali's 2014 work, Hââbré, the Last Generation, documents the last generation of scarified Africans. “Hââbré” means “writing”, “sign” and “scarification”; this one word signifies all three notions in Kõ, a language from Burkina Faso. Most of the people photographed emigrated from Burkina Faso a long time ago, but the scarification reminds them of their home country and their past. The project gathers their testimonies and looks at their integration into Ivoirian socity.

As a child, Choumali would travel to Adaou, a small town in the southeast, to visit her grandmother, a farmer and trader. She often felt a cultural disconnect as they did not speak the same language or share life experiences. After her grandmother died in 2001, Choumali lamented losing part of her family history and questioned her identity as an African. This experience inspired her 2014 portrait series, "Resilients", which documents young, professional African women who also struggled with connecting to their family's traditional past. The only requirement was that the women had to wear traditional clothing already worn by their grandmother or an older female relative, emphasizing the link between past and present.

Joana Choumali (born 1974) is a freelance photographer based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. She uses photography to explore issues of identity and the diversity of African cultures.