Q/A with African Women in Photography Founder, Sarah Waiswa
Q/A with African Women in Photography Founder, Sarah Waiswa
Photographer and curator Sarah Waiswa has long been a leading voice in the push to redefine how African stories are told—and who gets to tell them. As the founder of African Women Photography (AWP), she helped build a community that supports and showcases the work of women photographers across the continent, challenging stereotypes and expanding the visual narrative of Africa from the inside out.
Now, in partnership with the END Fund, Waiswa is leading a new initiative that brings visibility to an often-overlooked issue: neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). As she leads on a special open call photography commission, she’s guiding five African women photographers selected to document the impact of NTDs across the continent.
The project aims to center local voices and visual perspectives while raising awareness of these preventable diseases that still affect more than a billion people worldwide.
We spoke with Sarah about the goals of the commission, the importance of ethical storytelling, and why supporting women behind the camera remains more urgent than ever.
The END Fund: Can you tell us about African Women Photography and its mission?
Sarah: African Women Photography is a community and organization established in 2021 dedicated to elevating and celebrating the work of women and non-binary photographers from the continent. Our mission is to connect our community members, particularly emerging photographers, to mentorship, education, and exhibition opportunities, as well as different types of publishing platforms.
We maintain a growing visual directory that has over a hundred members that hopes to link the photographers primarily working in documentary and fine art with both global and local opportunities. We aim to reshape narratives about the continent, but also foster collaboration and professional growth within the actual community.
The END Fund: Can you talk a little bit about how AWP became involved in this project?
Sarah: It started with my relationship with the END Fund, having worked with the organization before. I think the partnership works because of our shared commitment to visual storytelling as a tool for advocacy.
Our belief is in the power of local photographers to document their own stories and issues with a local nuance and perspective. I guess we saw it as an opportunity not only to spotlight health challenges, but also to empower the young women and non-binary photographers to lead the narrative.
And by doing so, I am hoping that the stories are told with dignity, some cultural insight and, most importantly, having that local context.
The END Fund: What impact do you hope that this kind of visual storytelling will have on public perception of the continent and ultimately policy surrounding NTDs?
Sarah: It shifts the urgency of the narrative, right? We want to show the day-to-day of affected communities and the realities of these diseases through a local lens, countering stereotypes about health in Africa at the same time.
And then also hopefully encourage policy makers or funders to prioritize fostering a global understanding of NTDs, and show a narrative not so rooted in victimhood, but rooted in agency. This obviously comes from telling stories of actual people as opposed to just statistics that people have heard over and over again, particularly when it comes to issues on the continent.
The END Fund: Could explain a little bit more about why it’s important that African women photographers are telling these stories?
Sarah: I think that the African women will bring a lived experience – a lived experience and some sort of cultural fluency. I think a lot of times stories about the continent, whether health stories or not, are told in a way that often perpetuates stereotypes or overlook certain nuances.
African women more than likely will approach African women subjects with empathy and accountability.
And it extends beyond just a home country. What I think in the bigger picture, what we’re saying is that yes, [one of the photographers may] not maybe from that community, but she’s still an African woman and she still has lived experience as an African woman. And so those are the qualities that we hope that she will take into that experience.
The END Fund: Could you speak a little bit to your experience when you were, for example, an up and coming artist and had an opportunity to document other communities on the continent? What was that first experience like for you?
Sarah: I think early on, I was of the opinion that, oh, I can speak for those who couldn’t speak with this idea of giving a voice to the voiceless, and I soon realized as I continued the work that was not the approach that I wanted to have.
It’s also a rhetoric that I don’t believe in, because you really can’t give anybody a voice. I don’t think you can tell someone’s story, you can only tell a version of it. As photographers, we encourage, especially emerging photographers, to tell stories within their own communities.
But of course, as your work grows you will end up with more assignments that will lead you out of your community.
I think in my own work, I try to be respectful whenever I enter a different space. I am really ready to listen and to observe, to try as much as possible to make a person feel comfortable and also to explain what I am doing.
Because a lot of times people on the continent don’t understand why they’re being photographed.
What would you say, in the most broad terms, would success look like for you at the end of this project?
Sarah: Each artist being able to create a solid body of work. A solid body of work could mean different things, but I would say definitely a complete project.
Projects in which the artists have taken time to be in the communities, to work with the communities, and to create a reflection of what they’ve seen. And particularly, of course, because they’re gonna be focusing on women, but that their projects really reflect what they have experienced in the communities and reflect the experiences of the women in those communities.
I think that is really one of the important things here is that in the end, each artist is able to reflect the lived experiences.
The END Fund: Is this project model – art for advocacy rather than the traditional style of documentary photography – something that you expect or would hope to be replicated in public health or human rights issues across the continent?
Sarah: I think it’s ongoing. It’s being done. I look at organizations like Water Aid. They have been doing work like this for a long time.
There are a number of NGOs that have taken this approach. I think because over the years, the NGO model has been really about statistics and these very kind of photo journalistic images, which encouraged taking images that would help to fundraise.
But we are moving away from that type of photography, so not maybe to the level of this [open call style] and giving room to like fine art photography, but just the shift to images which are more reflective and much more respectful and much more considerate of their subjects.
Sometimes I think seeing things in a new way may generate the conversation that needs to happen.
For more information on this joint venture by the END Fund and African Women Photography, click here. Stay tuned for more updates!