Market Photo Workshop is part of 11 partner schools taking part in the International Dior Photography Award for Young Talents. The House of Dior in Paris, France, launched this project January 2019 as an international photography competition among alumni and students from the best photo schools or photography departments in the world. 2019 Patrick Selemani was shortlisted in to the final list Laureates. 2020, help us to congratulate Pamela Tulizo, 2019 Intermediate Course in Photography Graduate and  our inaugural 2019 Regional Scholarship recipient,  on her nomination for the Christian Dior International Schools of Photography contest.

We did a Q&A with her and she had a lot to say about her journey in photography and applying for International Christian Dior competition.

1. What drew you to photography? How did you discover photography?

I discovered photography in my family when I was very young maybe 5 or 6 years old, because we had a camera at home and it was my father who could only use it. He was the one taking pictures at home and no one else had the right to touch the camera except him and my mother. Later, when I graduated, I started my journalism training at RFi, then after working for a local TV station in Goma. I have always been interested and fascinated by photography but I did not know where to start because there is no art school where I came from. Maybe after wanting to be free in my way of seeing things and say what I thought and especially to meet the history of my community without following someone’s editorial line, photography was the only thing for me who could free me and my thoughts. Photography is considered in my community and my family, especially with my father as a work reserved for men, so I started to learn the basics of photography in secret with some of my friends who are photographers, then I I participated in training here and there until obtaining a scholarship at the Market Photo Workshop, January 2019.

2. Tells your application for International Christian Dior?

International Christian Dior competition, I received an email with a link like all Market Photo Workshop students. When I saw the theme “face to face” I was already in the theme of the competition and it has been a year waiting to apply for International Christian Dior competition. Deep down I knew it will not be easy because there will be a lot of candidates, but with that, it was no longer a question of winning but having my work being judged by an exceptional jury and that was the goal. After I received the selection email, I was so happy and proud of myself.

1. What does this nomination mean to you or your photography?

This appointment means a lot to me and even more to my work. This is the kind of canvas that allows me to represent myself and to also give me a platform to contribute to my work in general. I also wanted to show the world this project. The opportunity to be part of this network of artists from all over the world and represent Africa is a step towards the evolution of my artistic start.

2. Tell us more about your body of work you applied with for International Christian Dior?

The series that I apply with, it is a very particular series; I speak of my city and my country. #Double Identity a series which shows and goes back from the life of Goma under its two faces. Through an interplay of looks, Double Identity (Woman of Kivu) strives to highlight the double identity of the women of Goma. An outside look from the press in particular, which conveys an image of them as a victim and the more intimate one, which reveals how they would like to be represented; beautiful, strong women who fight social injustices. Starting from the urban reality of Goma and the daily life of women in Kivu, I stage their identity duality via, among other things, photography and the use of actors, models, theater actors, and dancers. Double Identity is anchored in the context of political instability in North Kivu for more than 20 years, due in particular to conflicts linked to the high concentration of minerals buried in its underground and the fertility of its lands. I deplore the partial treatment of the international press, NGOs, researchers, artists, etc. to the province and more particularly to Goma, retaining only the negative aspects (ethnic wars, poverty, rape, Ebola epidemic, conflict in Ituri, economic instability, natural disasters, etc.) to the detriment of the mention of the energy and courage of their people.

1. What do you hope to achieve with your photography?

Based on my personal history, my artistic approach is oriented towards research on female identity. With my work, I hope to understand myself and women in general, to know the place and role of women in society. I hope that my work one day will help eradicate the social injustice done to women in the world, to challenge and educate women by contribution to their rights, and awaken their subconscious on their potential, strength and, beauty.

2. What themes, subject or topics do you hope to focus your lens on going forward?

I am currently in artistic residence in Belgium where I am working on a new series, which will be based on research on racial inequality, post-colonial psychology. The objective of my research is to find a common point between everyone and make a contemporary representation of humanity through women.

FB: Pamela Tulizo

Instagram: @pamelatulizo