Harmattan - Togo Photo Festival

The works of the Togolese artists presented in the book reveal the visionary force of West African photography through a hybrid visual language grounded in lived experience, shaped by ancestral memory, and animated by traditions and spirituality.

Harmattan, the first edition of the Togo Photo Festival, takes its name from the dry wind that carries desert dust across West Africa to the Gulf of Guinea. Harmattan evokes a moment of altered perception: a season in which light becomes pale and diffused, horizons blur, and the familiar appears transformed. In this sense, photography itself becomes a harmattan — a medium capable of reframing reality and opening new ways of seeing.

Founded by artist Ako Atikossie and curator Giulia Brivio, the festival emerges from a desire to investigate photography as a critical and poetic instrument for reimagining the West African imaginary, forging connections between past and present, cultural heritage and the dynamic energy of a rapidly evolving artistic scene.

The participating artists are: Parmenas Awudza, Delali Ayivi, Zododo Ekue – Elise Beltz, Fo Kwesi, Lina Mensah, Ras Sankara Agboka, Koffi Djifa Seble, Enok Tsevi, Wody Yawo, Kadessi Alassani – Ana Veronica, David Nana Opoku Ansah, Federica Landi, Nicola Lo Calzo, Malick Welli – Charlotte Brathwaite.

The catalogue includes an essay by the Togolese curator Kwami Obed Nyamakou.