#TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou made many rethink their perceptions of what “Africa” really looks like. For Somalia specifically, Abdulkadir Mohamed wants to do the same.
In an interview with True Africa photographer he said, “When I was outside of Somalia, all the pictures I would see about Somalia were just the normal clichés about wars and people who are either pirates or starving….That’s not the Mogadishu that I know…I decided to focus on creating positive content, which means that I let others do the usual negative narrative of my city.”
A self-taught photographer, he was born in Mogadishu and moved to Canada as a teenager right before Somalia’s civil war. After twenty years living in Canada and the United States, he moved back to Somalia in 2014 and began this project.
It started out simple: take photos to show friends what Somalian life was really like. But his work has now grown to become part of a larger movement of Somalian artists gaining widespread recognition for presenting a new image of their country.
Check out some of those images below:
Intermission
Intermission
Other Somalian photographers to check out:
Poetry and Portrait project Somali Sideways
https://instagram.com/Somalisideways/
Humans of Somalia
https://instagram.com/humansofsomalia/
Fashion and Beauty Blogger Basma K
https://instagram.com/basma_k/
Viral Comedian Ugaaso Boocow
https://instagram.com/ugaasadda/ 