Ellen Auerbach Fellowship for Photography 2020. Ferhat Bouda

Ferhat Bouda’s lifelong project is devoted to the Berbers, also known as Imazighen (free people), whose culture has survived despite the repressions they have endured for hundreds of years. He has set him-self the task of preserving the singularity of this culture through and in photographs. Born in Algeria (Kabylia) in 1976 he has been living in Frankfurt am Main as a freelance photographer since 2005 and travelled to all countries in North Africa and the Sahel for his photographic project.

“What kind of photography is Bouda’s? Documentary, reportage, or art, it makes no difference. The pictures of the Berbers in the conflict zones of North Africa as well as the reportage of social exclusion in Frankfurt am Main are marked by a moving human quest: a visual scanning that questions humanity with every exposure. His pictures have deeply moved us. The moment hovers in them because Bouda’s work is able, with a person’s movement, be it only a gaze, to unite time and space in a singular constellation which is also inherent in the duration of our gaze, providing it with a future.”

Jury of the Ellen Auerbach Fellowship: Hubertus von Amelunxen, Tina Bara, Barbara Klemm