Bénédicte Kurzen

Bénédicte Kurzen (France) is a photographer and a member of NOOR agency since 2012. Her work is shaped by long term comitment, rules of ethics to the question of post colonial representation of war, violence, and socio-economic changes in Africa and more specifically in Nigeria. For the fast few years, she has developped a collaborative process with her subjects, but also other photographers and artists to disperse the overpowering figure of the western gaze and its mechanisms. This is particularly obvious in her two last bodies of work – “Lake Chad Chronicles” and “Land of Ibeji”. She is represented by TJ Boulting gallery (London, UK). She holds a master’s degree in Contemporary History with Excellence (La Sorbonne, Paris). Among few disctinctions, she was part of the prestigious World Press Joop Swart Masterclass (2008), a Pulitzer Center and European Journalism Center grantee (2012, 2017), nominated for the Visa d’Or for her work about ethnico religious violence in Nigeria (“A nation Lost to god, 2012). More recently, she won with her collaborator, Sanne De Wilde, the first Prize in the portrait category of the World Press Photo (2019) along with other prizes. In 2015, became an adjunct lecturer at the American University of Nigeria, and has guest lecturer in various institutions. More recently she became a contributing photographer to National Geographic and a member of the Photographic Society.