Photo competition

Photography showcase

The RISE Africa Annual Photography  Showcase encourages imaginative and novel thinking to collectively envision the futures of African cities. It aims to promote citizen photography and grassroots storytelling, as well as curated photo-journalism, as a way to excite and encourage citizens and decision makers about their homes. The resulting photography entries will be used to elicit ideas from city officials, urbanists, decision-makers, private sector and civil society who will explore and engage with the exhibition through a number of workshops. These annual showcases intend to produce realistic, novel and positive demonstrations of Africa which are curated from within.

In order to achieve this, ICLEI Africa will be running an annual photography competition to which anyone who is passionate about the future of African cities is encouraged to contribute. Each year there will be a new theme to explore key thematic areas of RISE Africa. See thematic areas here.

Theme for 2025: Where We Gather

View the 2024 exhibition page | THEME: EVERYDAY POSSIBILITIES [from neighbourhoods to cities]

View 2023 exhibition page | THEME: The Cities We Want

View 2022 exhibition page | THEME: Creativity / Agency / Urgency – City Scenes

View 2021 exhibition page | THEME: My Afro Future City is…

View 2020 exhibition page | THEME: Hidden Flows

RISE Africa Action Festival 2025 Photography Competition
Theme: Where We Gather

Over the years, RISE Africa has grown a platform and a community that fosters connection. For the fifth RISE Africa Photography Competition, we are celebrating places of connection in our cities: spaces where we come together to share our diverse backgrounds, experiences and abilities; spaces where we shape our urban environments, and where they shape us. These spaces extend from intimate homes to neighbourhoods and beyond; from the mobilised bodies and motorised wheels on rushing streets to the interwoven urban ecologies of flowing rivers, forests and further naturescapes; from secret hidden nooks to broad public arenas; from the familiar bazaars and markets of daily life to environments that unexpectedly challenge our routines. From sites steeped in history to places in-the-making, Where We Gather represents the many thrumming heartbeats of our cities, shaping their rhythm, form and identity.

Just as our continent’s myriad cultures and traditions embody deep ties between ourselves, our ancestors and land itself, so, too, do our collective visions for prosperous cities manifest in physical space. Amidst the temptation to adopt outside visions as our own, the purposeful pursuit of uniquely African forms of urbanism continuously demonstrates more appropriate, meaningful and lasting imagery and realities, grounded in our own soil, and tangling with the tangible elements of people’s everyday lives. Now, RISE Africa invites photographers from across the continent to showcase the parts of their cities that actively foster gathering and shared experience among their residents. These spaces contribute to prosperous urban futures through their power to connect us and build shared identities; they consistently affirm that joy lives here. 

Every day, millions of Africans already connect with one another across a multitude of urban landscapes. Join us in sharing the stories of these spaces, and the qualities that enable our interconnected potential to realise unbound possibilities. Show us the emerging and unexpected spaces that both inspire and manifest our dreams, where people gather in shared purpose around new ideas, initiatives and ways of being to create more equitable, sustainable and empowering African cities.

Submit your entry here

Entry requirements:

In the exploration of this theme, RISE Africa invites participants to submit photographic entries that include the following elements:

No more than 4 photographs that clearly depict your chosen place of gathering and highlight the following 2 things:

  1. The context, mood, and sense of the place (consider physical and cultural qualities)
  2. How people interact with the place and with one another

A brief title

A short description/story about your chosen place of connection and its people (max. 150 words)

Selection criteria:

Your images can explore the theme through a wide range of potential locations, people and activities as well as various photographic styles — from documentary representation to creative abstraction and everything in between. Above all, we are looking for photographs that strike a balance between the following three criteria:

  1. Thematic alignment: How well do the images embody the theme, and how cohesively do the images, title and description align? Images should clearly demonstrate the characteristics that make the chosen location special as well as the types of interactions and activities that shape and are in turn shaped by that space.
  2. Aesthetic value: How effectively the photographer has used visual techniques to convey the theme and tell their story. Light, composition, contrast and other photographic elements should work together to breathe life into the chosen space, allowing it to speak for itself, as well as capture the essence of the connections it fosters.
  3. Evocation: Photography is an art of visual meaning-making and storytelling. We are looking for photographs that set imaginations alight, evoking powerful emotions, experiences and ideas. Particular attention will be given to images that celebrate an overlooked, unconventional or changing space playing host to new or innovative endeavours. Where images focus on everyday places, they should seek to explore novel aspects of those places or present them in a visually inventive way that compels us to view them in a different light.

For inspiration, please check out entries from previous years on the Future African Cities Instagram page and read the RISE Africa 2025 Action Festival Curatorial Statement.

Eligibility

All entrants must be over the age of 18.

Only submit portraits with permission. All images received will be deemed to have been taken and submitted with the necessary permission of their subject(s).

Images of children in which they are identifiable by their faces will be disqualified. However, non-identifiable silhouettes and children in image backgrounds are permitted.

Images that are voyeuristic or degrading to the dignity of the subject(s) will be disqualified.

The content and context of the images must be of, or in, African cities.

Entries must be photographic in nature (still images captured using a camera) — no other media form will be considered.

Images can be taken with any kind of camera. Minor editing, including the use of AI-powered enhancement tools (e.g. cropping, sharpening, contrast adjustment and colour correction), is allowed as long as it does not significantly change the image as a whole, introduce new information or remove information captured by the camera. No images produced by generative AI will be considered.

 

Use rights

Each participant retains all copyrights to their photographs, and written recognition will be provided alongside any use of their photographic submissions.

By submitting one or more images to the competition, participants confirm that the entry is their own work and that they have the permissions necessary to share it with ICLEI Africa.

Upon submission of their entry, each participant grants ICLEI Africa the right to use their image(s) in the following ways:

Required: To showcase their images on RISE Africa platforms for the promotion of the RISE Africa 2025 Action Festival and associated Photography Competition.

Optional: To showcase their images on RISE Africa and ICLEI Africa platforms for the promotion of the RISE Africa 2025 Action Festival and future events.

 

Disclaimer

ICLEI Africa reserves the right to define the particular criteria for choosing the most compelling submission and not to select a winner.

For any inquiries, please contact either Luka Dreyer (Photography Competition Organiser) at luka.dreyer@iclei.org or Vida Madighi-Oghu (RISE Africa Coordinator) at vida.madi@iclei.org.

Submission: 

Entries close at 23:59 CAT on 20 March 2025. No late submissions will be considered.

Please submit your entries using the provided Airtable form.

You may submit up to three entries, but each must showcase a different place of connection.

Submit your photographs as JPEG/PNG files (max. 10 MB each), with the following naming format: Name + Surname + Photograph Number (e.g. Fatima Musa 1).

Criteria for selection

Alignment with the theme

Aesthetic value

Provocative or innovative imagery

Prizes and exhibition:

Based on the selection criteria, the curatorial team will select a shortlist of 12–15 entries.

An independent judging panel will select 1 winner to receive a cash prize of USD 750 and 2 finalists, each awarded a cash prize of USD 500.

Shortlisted entrants, finalists and the winner will be notified via email, announced on RISE Africa’s social media platforms —Instagram, LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) — and have their entries showcased on the RISE Africa website.

The winner and two finalists will have their work showcased at an exhibition to be held in Cape Town, South Africa during the RISE Africa Action Festival on 25–29 May 2025.

Follow the @futureafricancities Instagram page and subscribe to the monthly RISE Africa mailer for more information.

Submit your entry here