Through his stunning work, Belgian-Beninese photographer Fabrice Monteiro challenges us to examine issues of fashion, race, consumerism, and exploitation.
“My initial idea was to create some sort of tale for kids that could be distributed in African schools and that would be based on traditional beliefs, especially animism – the belief in spirits. Each spirit depicted appears on a different site touching specifically upon one environmental issue– plastic waste, global warming… I shot nine prophecies in Senegal, but I want to start making these images all around the world – Africa was just the starting point for an issue that affects the entire planet” (Griot, May 2018)
Raised in Africa and trained as an industrial engineer, Fabrice Monteiro travelled to some of the most polluted areas to create these works. The costumes were made from found-objects gathered at each site in collaboration with Senegalese fashion designer, Doulcy.
Monteiro’s work has been exhibited in Belgium, Gabon, Spain, Germany, France, the U.S., and Luxembourg in solo exhibitions and in numerous international group exhibitions, including at the Musée de l’Homme, Paris; the Shanghai Biennial; the Dakar Biennial in Senegal, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2015). His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Chicago Museum of Photography, the Seattle Museum of Art, and the Geneva Museum of Ethnography, Switzerland.
Fabrice Monteiro lives and works in Dakar, Senegal.
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