Baudouin Mouanda
For me, photography is an art of encounter: a way to build ties with communities and to help us become aware together.
Baudouin Mouanda is a photographer from Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, where he is building the ClassPro Culture photography centre. He sees photography as a way to meet people and to work with communities on the questions that shape their lives.
Seasonal Sky
In some districts of Brazzaville nobody sleeps when a storm is coming. The seasons have changed and the threat of rain never goes away: when thunder rolls at night, people leave their houses to watch the sky, then shovel out the sand and try to turn the water aside with buckets and pans. Older residents who spent their lives building a home sometimes have to abandon it. Mouanda began the series after rain flooded the basement of ClassPro Culture, the photography centre he is building in Brazzaville. He staged the pictures with people from the outlying districts, who act in their own images and take part in a shared conversation about climate change and how we live with our surroundings.
