Over the last three decades, South African photographer Guy Tillim, 56, has borne witness to the dramatic change in African metropolises. While working as a photographer for Reuters and Agence France Press, he has often been at the right place at the right time. In the past four years, he has travelled to Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Durban, Maputo, Beira, Harare, Luanda, Libreville, Accra, Abidjan, and Dakar to work on a series of photo essays on contrasts and characters, historical and societal changes in the African continent. The works are included in a book, Museum of the Revolution, whose publication coincides with a major solo exhibition at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris.

In Addis Ababa, the city that lacks the European infrastructure that underpins the other metropolises, Tillim has captured a way of life fast disappearing: neighborhood stalls making way for massive towers, a dense city with a mix of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and squat structures being replaced with skyscrapers. A similar theme that we could also find in the catalogues of other African capitals, the transformation in the streets, between opulent avenues, bustling markets, architectural vision. Whether it is in Harare, Maputo, Nairobi, or in Addis Ababa, Tillim’s photos vividly capture the inheritance of past and present history, the urban landscape of a continent that is reinventing itself. Punctuated with multiple details and touches of vibrant colours, the works document scenes of everyday life, where people are on the move, or waiting.

Vehicles, roadways, advertising, street furniture, pedestrians, massive towers, neglected corners, light rail system, makeshift markets are all within a framework wide enough for occupants to flourish.

Guy Tillim – Museum of the Revolution, until June 2, 2019 at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation – 79, rue des Archives, Paris.

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