Aperture / 252

“Accra,” guest edited by the New York–based artist Lyle Ashton Harris and the Accra-based photographer and educator Nii Obodai, considers the Ghanaian capital as a site of dynamic photographic voices and histories that connect visual culture in West Africa to the world.

 

Front

Agenda

Alfredo Boulton, A Window Suddenly Opens, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Immersion

 

Viewfinder

Elizabeth A. Kessler on how the James Webb Space Telescope envisions the cosmos

 

Timeline

Kim Bell on the afterlife of a nineteenth-century assassin

 

Dispatches

Tin Htet Paing on the artists working under Myanmar’s oppressive military regime

 

Curriculum

Mimi Plumb on the Clash, Larry Sultan, and the Mission District in San Francisco

 

Words

Ghana Becomes You

Zohra Opoku’s evocative reflections on mortality and resilience

A Conversation with Ekow Eshun

 

Image Bank

The archives illuminating a nation’s past

Kobby Ankomah Graham

 

Ghana Obscura

For artists and writers, the return to a land where history was made

Anakwa Dwamena

 

The Correspondent

How Gerald Annan-Forson documented Ghana’s postindependence transformations

Jesse Weaver Shipley

 

Why We Went Out

The elusive spaces for queer expression

Chiké Frankie Edozien

 

A Library for the Future

How Paul Ninson built a center for photobooks

Ama Benewaa Tawiah

 

The Door of Memory

John Akomfrah on telling stories about migration and belonging

A Conversation with Vanessa Peterson and Lyle Ashton Harris

 

Pictures

The Society

A portrait of Accra’s leadership by Lyle Ashton Harris

Senam Okudzeto

 

Postbox Ghana

Rediscovering architectural heritage through picture postcards

Kuukuwa O. Manful

 

Sunday Special

Carlos Idun-Tawiah’s retro-inspired views of youth and style

Nana Oforiatta Ayim

 

Early Risers

For Kay Kwabia, the poetry of everyday scenes

Lovia Gyarkye

 

Beauty Lives in Nima

Fibi Afloe highlights the graceful fashion in one Accra neighborhood

Amy Sall

 

Makola’s Market Queens

Misper Apawu’s portraits of traders and sellers

Nana Ama Agyemang Asante

 

Double Double

Lloyd Foster’s kinetic photo-sculptures

Nicole Acheampong

 

Back

The PhotoBook Review

A conversation with the publisher Stanley/Barker, Salamishah Tillet on the history of Black studio photographers—and a selection of recent photobooks

 

Endnote

Six questions for Kwame Anthony Appiah

 

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Aperture magazine, founded in 1952 and based in New York City, is an international quarterly journal specializing in photography. It features photographs by established and emerging photographers, as well as artists experimenting with photo related media. Each issue is usually themed and includes writings by critics, scholars, photography practitioners, and others involved in the field of photography.