June 12th, Tarifa, Spain – Photographers from South Africa and Kenya won prestigious awards at 4th Photoafrica contest, which took place within 8th African Film Festival of Tarifa. 1st place award, endowed with €1,500, won Jessica MacLeod from South Africa with the photograph titled “You see a shack, I see my house”.2nd place award, endowed with €1,000, won James Muriuki from Kenya with the photograph titled “44”.
3rd place award, endowed with €500, won the winner of 3rd Photoafrica Mimi Cherono from Kenya with the photograph titled “Khusi and the Giraffes”. “It was incredibly difficult to decide about winners, as fourth edition of Photoafrica experienced recorded number of over 400 entries and once again proved the unique potential and quality of African photographers”, says Pablo Juliá, chairman of the jury and director of the Andalusian Centre Of Photography.
The unique potential of present African photography confirmed also Gaetano Gualdo, coordinator of 8th African Film Festival of Tarifa: “This year for the first time ever participated also photographers from the countries like Madagascar, Namibia or Lesotho, while only from South Africa came 23 entries out of which 16 made it to finale and one of them, Jessica MacLeod, won the 1st prize,” highlighted Gualdo. 
The topic of this year Photoafrica was “Urban Space” of African cities seen through the photographers eyes. There were 25 photographers from 11 African countries competing with their works in finale of this year Photoafrica contest. The exhibiton of altogether 27 large format photographs from this year finale was inaugurated and is installed outdoors in Tarifa and after the end of the festival will be travelling the whole year through Spanish and African cities.
4th Photoafrica participants represented newcomers as well as experienced photographers, in some cases participants or even winners (Mimi Cherono or Adolphus Opara) from previous editions. The winning photograph from last year “Portrait of the artist as a young woman” of Mimi Cherono was selected as the official visual of this year African Film Festival of Tarifa.
The most entries (23) came this year from South Africa. Surprisingly the average age of South African finalists was between 20-30 years and some of them have started to make photographs already in their teen years.
From Tarifa 4th Photoafrica exhibition will be travelling through Spanish and African cities till the end of the year.
There have been 215 photographs from 120 photographers exhibited within Photoafrica since it has started in 2008.
25 photographers competing at 4th Photoafrica:
- Abdelmohcine Nakari, Morroco
- Aboubacar Traore, Mali
- Adolphus Opara, Nigeria
- Djibril Drame, Senegal
- Georges Senga, RDC
- James Muriuki, Kenya
- Hlompho Letsielo, Lesotho
- Resta Nyamwanza, Zimbabwe
- Mário Macilau, Mozambique
- Marwen Trabelsi, Tunis
- Mimi Cherono Ng’ok, Kenya
- Noncedo Charmaine Mathibela, South Africa
- Roanne Sutcliffe, South Africa
- Anthony Purnell, South Africa
- Bianca Kerstein Vinay, South Africa
- Cendyl Charlton, South Africa
- Chandre Busschau, South Africa
- Costas Christodoulou, South Africa
- David Kutlwano Moagi, South Africa
- Davina Gokool, South Africa
- Hayden Brawn, South Africa
- Ihsaan Haffejee, South Africa
- Jessica MacLeod, South Africa
- Kristi Bailey, South Africa
- Mack Magagane, South Africa
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