13° Edition
Bénédicte Kurzen
Ghana: Following our e-waste
Bénédicte Kurzen (France, 1980) is a photographer and visual artist member of NOOR Images and the National Geographic Photo Society.
© Robin Maddock
Bénédicte Kurzen is a photographer working on crosscultural narratives and mythologies, opening the door to possible redefinitions of social concepts and representations. Her photography combines documentary elements with a metaphoric, constructed visual language, and collaborative processes.
She began her career in 2003 in the Middle East, covering hard news in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, before moving to Africa where she lived and produced substantial work on social changes and tensions in South Africa (2005-2011) and Nigeria (2011-2023). Since 2018, she has deepened her work on mythologies in Nigeria and China, focusing on twin cosmologies and examining the persistence of ancient beliefs in Mayotte.
Kurzen has been published internationally for the past twenty years and received several distinctions, including participation in the prestigious World Press Joop Swart Masterclass (2008), a Pulitzer Center on Crisis reporting and European Journalism Centre grantee (2012, 2017), and nomination for the Visa d’Or for her work in Nigeria (2012). More recently, she won a World Press Photo Prize (2019). She is a member of NOOR Images and of the Photo Society.
