Fadil Owusu

Fadil Owusu was born on October 12, 1977, in Johannesburg (South Africa).
While still a teenager, he began his career as a street photographer, went on to work as an assistant in a darkroom, and then worked as an art photographer. Subsequently, he joined the collective “Horn”, working under the alias “Weiki”. Initially he mainly documented the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

In 1995 he started working with the African Studies Institute at the University of the Witterland, where he worked alongside Teo Van Dyke.
Owusu’s artistic methods improved significantly during his time at the University. He spent much of the next 12 years collecting photographs of African People. Then, Owusu realized the importance of portrait and started working in fictional found object pictures like the famous series “Congolese diaries” (see below).

Owusu emphasized the spiritual dimension of his work, as in the series “Shadows” from 1997. After starting off with street and news photography, he specialized in African landscapes. Later projects show his deep concern for the condition of the environment at the beginning of the 21st century.

At his exhibition “Romary” in 2010, he explained that the essence is not what you see in these photographs, but what you don’t see