We are happy to inform that is arriving our new guest Akitunde Akinleye. Akintunde will stay in the Thami Mnyele Foundation Studio from September till the end of November.

"If there were words with which I could sum up my entire years in my home country, Nigeria, it would be tragedy, beauty and survival. Yes. I know what you may have been expecting to hear is that despite our underdevelopment and strife, we are a happy people; that the diversity of culture makes up for the disappointment of socio-political stability, and our conflict produces the best music to listen to and the most exuberant population in all of Africa; that you can and should visit my country. I do not deny that all these things are undeniable truth. However, i choose not to give you that pitch — at least not today."

AKINTUNDE AKINLEYE is a Nigerian Photographer.
is the first Nigerian Photographer to have been awarded a prize in the prestigious World Press Photo, Netherlands in 2007 with an iconic photograph of a man rinsing soot from his face at the scene of an oil pipeline explosion in Lagos, December 2006. It was the beauty of a tragedy which claimed the lives of 269 people that made the official signage of the 19th edition of international photojournalism festival in perpignan, France in 2007.

more info.http://www.akintunde1.com/EN/page/Home/

An award fellow of the National Geographic Society- All Roads photo project, Akintunde has attended conferences and seminars in editorial and documentary photography in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Lagos. He has made presentations of his work and papers at the University of Stanford in the United States, Amsterdam and other major cities around the world. Since 2007, he has been a jury member of Friends of the Earth international photo competition, Netherlands. In June 2008, while attending a fellowship programme at the University of Texas in Dallas' artists' project, he produced a body of work that culminates oil production in Texas.

A masters' degree holder in Educational Technology at the University of Lagos, Nigeria and a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Akintunde has had his work exhibited in Washington, Los Angeles, New Mexico, Lagos, Amsterdam, Graz and Madrid. He had once been commissioned for assignments in Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria and currently pursue projects in African culture and tradition!