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36 / PEOPLE / Photographers<br />
PEOPLE / 37<br />
“The most challenging<br />
part is overcoming the<br />
fear of failure”<br />
Photomenons<br />
These contemporary<br />
PHOTOGRAPHERS<br />
AND ARTISTS are<br />
creating evocative<br />
imagery and breaking<br />
new ground in fine art,<br />
fashion reportage and<br />
photography.<br />
text Wanjeri Gakuru<br />
Fabrice<br />
Monteiro<br />
Born<br />
Belgium<br />
Hometown<br />
Dakar<br />
Highlights<br />
Exhibited at The Dakar Biennale and the<br />
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African<br />
Art (Washington, D.C)<br />
Best-known work<br />
The Prophecy series<br />
FABRICE MONTEIRO’S vast body<br />
of work swings from sober portraiture to<br />
mesmerising fantasy and back again.<br />
Early on, he realised that he wanted to<br />
produce images with gravitas. “My first<br />
gigs were in fashion photography, but<br />
they felt hollow so I decided to work on<br />
my personal concerns,” says Monteiro.<br />
In 2011, he took a photojournalism<br />
course in Brussels and, in the same year,<br />
he put up his first solo exhibition, “Wind<br />
of Change”, which featured portraits of<br />
the residents of Maison Shalom, a refuge<br />
– in Burundi – for the victims of genocide,<br />
AIDS orphans and displaced people. The<br />
stirring images were accompanied by each<br />
subject’s dreams or personal histories.<br />
Monteiro’s first personal work, the<br />
photo series, Marrons, was a recreation of<br />
images of slaves’ shackles from a book<br />
he’d read as a young boy: Les Passagers du<br />
Vent, an 18 th -century tale that plays out, in<br />
part, on a slave ship. This was Monteiro<br />
reckoning with his African and European<br />
heritage; what he describes as making him<br />
a “transcultural” individual.<br />
Monteiro’s creative process begins<br />
with the designing of an image in his mind<br />
and the execution can take weeks or even<br />
years to complete. “When I get an idea, I<br />
make it as simple and as accessible as<br />
possible,” he says. “The most challenging<br />
part is overcoming the fear of failure.”<br />
As Monteiro’s portfolio grew, so did<br />
his environmental awakening. “The Earth<br />
doesn’t need us to survive, we need it,” he<br />
says. Nothing explains his viewpoint as<br />
clearly as his The Prophecy series, a set of<br />
complex visuals that combine elaborate<br />
costumes and set design to create a stark<br />
portrait of our polluted world.
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