For Ayo Magazine, I  spoke with FABA founder Chika Okoli on how the platform is tackling misrepresentations of Africa one image at a time.

Published March 4, 2020

For years, Africa has been visually defined by disaster photography. We’ve all seen it before: images of an emaciated child entangled in a swarm of flies, or a child-soldier brandishing an AK-47 twice the size of the child’s weight. The ubiquity of atrocity, war and famine has long been ingrained in the lexicon of the global discourse about the continent. This has propagated harmful stereotypes, attributing “savagery and barbarism” to the Global South and “civilization and rationality” to the Global North. It leaves no room for nuance. Underpinned by the context of white saviorism, such images have populated mainstream Western media and humanitarian discourse, positioning Africa as a place in need of saving.

Troubled by the lack of authentic visual imagery of the continent, Chika Okoli, a content producer and filmmaker from Nigeria, launched For Africans By Africans (FABA), an online platform dedicated to showcasing everyday experiences across various African communities “through compelling visual content.”

“I don’t think [existing media publications] really showed my experience or the authenticity of the way that I lived in Nigeria, and I also realized that I didn’t know much about other African countries,” Okoli says.

From visuals of a woman dancing on the roads of N’djamena, Chad, to young men surfing the waves of Robertsport Beach in Liberia, FABA features user-generated content and candid imagery from its strong continental and international network of contributors. “It started out as a media platform and it has evolved into this visual diary of daily life on the continent,” Okoli says. 

The filmmaker is devoted to challenging one-dimensional perceptions of African life, emphasizing the importance of authentic visual representation to “bridge the gap between Africans.” FABA aims to develop a digital archive, detailing life from the continent and its diaspora for future generations of Africans. “Our goal is [to] infiltrate these digital spaces where we’re not represented as well as we should [be].”

Okoli’s platform addresses growing concerns with the global image economy and its role in perpetuating poverty porn, implemented most notably by non-profit, development agencies or media entities in using exploitative imagery of people in destitution to garner sympathy and spur donations or views. As the public’s understanding of a particular region is influenced primarily by rapid 24-hour news cycles (which provides little in-depth analyses of the region’s political context and its cultural affairs), images are often decontextualized and reality is warped. 

The commodification of poverty and pain has become marketable assets to sensationalize stories of strife. Multimedia journalist D.J. Clark’s analysis, found in ‘The Production of a Contemporary Famine Image: The Image Economy, Indigenous Photographers and the Case of Mekanic Philipos,’ examines how photojournalists often create dramatized images of a ravaged Africa that can easily resonate with Western audiences. Describing it as the “aestheticization of poverty,” Clark notes that these repetitive and familiar “image templates” —of the suffering mother and child, for instance—are easily recognizable, rendering such photographs as “saleable commodities,” especially in a highly saturated digital space and competitive image market. Due to the demands of a global visual economy, little effort has been made to dismantle notions of the continent’s perceived inferiority. As a result, platforms like FABA have become increasingly important. 

Given this context, FABA has strict submission guidelines, “No poverty porn or wildlife”—chief amongst them—which aims to reduce repetitive imagery that has marred perceptions of the continent. “Those are the things that I don’t want to see. While it’s part of the narrative, it’s not the complete thing,” Okoli says. “They get more attention than images of say, a girl going to school or a girl working on her laptop or girls taking selfies. Africans take selfies!”  

Sights and Sounds, the platform’s new documentary series, further elevates the visual experience, aiming to provide a video exploration of life across the continent’s 54 countries. The series’ debut features visuals from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, providing viewers a glimpse of the city’s culture. Like “a fly on the wall,” says Okoli, viewers get authentic information from the videos. “We didn’t change anything. We just took visuals of what we saw,” she says, maintaining the platform’s candid approach to content creation and curation.

FABA has created a digital space for contributors to share more wholesome representations of the continent. “That has been the bonding factor [between] FABA and our contributors,” Okoli explains. “[We] share the same values in terms of representation. That’s how we bond, but the internet has made it possible [and] easier to do all of that.” The platform leverages the ways the internet facilitates global interconnectivity, cultivating opportunities for communication and cultural exchange. Creating a digital diasporic community, users are connected through their shared experiences and differences. “I would post a video about somebody making puff puff [in Nigeria] and followers say, ‘we have this in Tanzania, it’s called ‘mandazi; or, “We have this in South Africa, it’s called ‘fat cakes’,” says Okoli. These interactions reveal the heterogeneity of continental communities, further illustrating the multifaceted dimensions of African identity. 

What’s notable about FABA is conveyed through Okoli’s reflection on Ivorian followers’ reactions to the first episode of Sights and Sounds. She notes that they recognized familiar faces. “The idea that they get to see themselves in these images is so powerful,” says Okoli. FABA asserts the importance of Africans maintaining control and agency over the production and dissemination of their visual narratives. Being the “gatekeeper” of sorts, Okoli is not influenced by the mythical, hyperbolized and infantilized representations of Africa, unlike other image-makers and curators who may be far removed from the region. 

It’s through her lens and those of other Africans, who have lived and experienced life on the continent, that makes FABA an educational and informative resource for users to learn (and unlearn) details about the continent’s diverse lifestyle, identity and culture, making it a platform truly For Africans, By Africans.

Sights and Sounds Credits

A film by Chika Okoli

Drone Footage/Fixer: Moustafa Cheateli

Sound: Tora TraoreSpecial

Thanks: The people of Abidjan + the Yopougon Dance Troupe