A major exhibition revisits five decades of fashion photography’s impact on African visual culture.
Still from ZEBRA AND BIRDS. Gavin Rajah by Michael Oliver Love. Courtesy of the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography.
The Inside Out Foundation presents ‘Fashion_The Image’, a major exhibition examining the development and impact of fashion photography in South Africa and across Africa. Launching in Johannesburg in February 2026, it spans two venues in Forest Town: the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography and the Inside Out Centre for the Arts. The show features photography, film, installations, and a programme of talks and events, highlighting fashion imagery as a defining visual language of the past fifty years.
Curated by Sharon Armstrong with Aspasia Karras, alongside Dr Erica de Greef and Ayabukwa Magocoba of the African Fashion Research Institute, the exhibition surveys fashion photography in Africa. It features archival material, contemporary works, and new commissions, tracing the continent’s evolving visual culture. The exhibition places Johannesburg at the centre of African fashion’s visual languages, showing its local and international influence.
Photography and the visual language of African fashion
Photography occupies a central role in the exhibition, foregrounding the photographers and filmmakers whose images have defined key moments in African fashion. Editorial spreads, campaign imagery, fashion films, and experimental collaborations are presented together to explore how fashion photography circulates widely across magazines, advertising campaigns, and digital media.
Work by photographers and filmmakers such as Pieter Hugo, Kevin Mackintosh, Nadine Ijewere, Nontsikelelo Veleko, Kristin-Lee Moolman, Nico Krinjo, Aart Verrips, Tatenda Chidora and Andile Buka is shown alongside designers like Thebe Magugu, Rich Mnisi, Maxhosa, David Tlale, Gert Johan Coetzee, Viviers, Naked Ape, Row G, Africa Your Time Is Now, Nao Serati, Uniform, Ephymol, Superella, Chulaap and Clive Rundle.
Displaying photographers’ work with designers and other creatives, the exhibition highlights the collective process of fashion image-making. It also credits stylists, editors, producers, set designers, hair and make-up artists, casting directors, and technical teams involved in producing and sharing fashion imagery.
A focused presentation of Koto Bolofo
Among the exhibition’s highlights is a focused presentation of Koto Bolofo’s work, a fashion photographer born in Lesotho and raised in South Africa, now based in Paris. Bolofo is widely recognised as one of the most significant fashion photographers to emerge from the continent, with photographs that have shaped campaigns and editorial images across the global fashion industry. The exhibition situates his work within a broader photographic lineage that foregrounds African authorship and influence within international fashion imagery.
Fashion, photography and environment
Presented across both venues, the exhibition introduces ‘Utopian Lands’ at the Inside Out Centre, part of ‘End of the Game’. This marks the first major change to the space, placing fashion imagery in conversation with themes of land, materials, ecology, and consumption.
Across both venues, visitors encounter still photography, fashion installations and a dedicated section devoted to fashion films. The exhibition is conceived as a dynamic platform rather than a fixed display, encouraging visitors to return throughout its duration as the public programme unfolds.
Public programme and educational focus
An extensive public programme forms a central component of the exhibition. Organised by the Inside Out Foundation in partnership with the African Fashion Research Institute, the programme includes walkabouts, talks, performances, masterclasses, and live events throughout the exhibition period.
The programme positions photography as an accessible medium through which young people can engage with visual culture, develop creative skills and explore potential careers within the creative industries. By foregrounding fashion photography as both an artistic and commercial medium, the exhibition highlights the role of images in shaping cultural identity, aesthetic taste and global perceptions of African fashion.
‘Fashion_The Image’ opened at the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography and the Inside Out Centre for the Arts, Johannesburg, on 26 February 2026 and runs until 31 May 2026. For more information, please visit the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography.
