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Yagazie Emezi

B. 1989

@yagazieemezi

Yagazie Emezi is an artist and self-taught photojournalist from Aba, Nigeria focused on stories surrounding African women and their health, sexuality, education, and human rights. She began her journey in 2015 and has since worked with Al-Jazeera, New York Times, Vogue, Newsweek, Inc. Magazine, TIME, The Guardian, Washington Post, National Geographic, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Weather Channel, New York Times Magazine, and others. After ten months in Monrovia, Liberia (2017) documenting the impact of education for girls in at-risk communities, Yagazie returned to her ongoing project Relearning Bodies which explores how trauma survivors, outside the narrative of violence and abuse, adapt to their new bodies while marking the absence of an effusive culture around body positivity as a noteworthy cultural phenomenon.

Yagazie is a recipient of the 2018 inaugural Creative Bursary Award from Getty Images. A participant for the 2018 New York Portfolio Review, she has also been featured by the British Journal of Photography, Huffington Post, i-D, Nieman Reports, Paper Magazine, Vogue, CNN, and The Washington Post. In November of 2018, she received a grant from the U.S Consulate General in Lagos for her photo-series addressing the reality of sexual violence against women and the vulnerable young in Nigeria. In 2019, she became the first black African woman to photograph for National Geographic Magazine and is a National Geographic Explorer Grantee. Yagazie was among the 2019 inaugural artists selected for Kehinde Wiley’s art residency at Black Rock, Senegal, and also a 2019 nominee to the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. She is a contributor to Everyday Africa and is a member of its advisory board.

Her artistic photo-projects are constructed pieces aimed to be visual critiques of Nigeria’s socio-political state and the roles media play in it, pulling from history and current events.

Yagazie is based in Lagos, Nigeria

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