WOMEN OF COTE D’IVOIRE

Photography With Purpose

The Digital Diary

Voice, Visibility, Recognition – this is what black women have been fighting for every day of their life. As a woman, you get to fight for yourself to be heard, have rights, respect, honor, and more. But as a black woman, you are constantly fighting two fights: your fight for women’s rights and the recognition of the color of your skin, the honoring of black women. This photo book celebrates African beauty, especially Ivorian beauty. The pages of this photobook are filled with beautiful, strong, and exceptional women, mothers, daughters, and sisters. The Ivorian woman’s beauty is very diverse as Cote d’Ivoire has been a welcoming land for many people from the four corners of Africa earlier in the days. This series not only celebrates the Ivorian woman’s features but also “their brain.” The women you encounter through this book are smart, powerful, elegant, gracious, and the list goes on. For so long, black women have been underrepresented, stereotyped, or body shammed because of their features. Now, we are changing the narratives. I choose to capture who and what I don’t see in art, on television, in the history book. I capture my subject around natural elements as flowers, plants, skies, sand to support the idea of harmony, peace, and beauty. God created things perfectly - black women come in every shade: dark, brown, light, albinos as nature comes with many colors. As nature comes with different textures and looks, black women come with various beautiful features: big nose, thin nose, big lips, thin lips, freckles, afro hair, thick, slim… I choose to explore a new aesthetic of African femininity, African brain, and Ivorian beauty.