12:30pm-1:30pm on Saturday 21 March
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
online, online, online
This livestreamed presentation of the in-person event will explore Southern Africa’s emerging photographic scene.
Join us for a conversation with the founders of the Bakashimika International Photography Festival – the first photography festival in Zambia, and the only one of its kind in Southern Africa.
Patrick Chilaisha, Edith Chiliboy, Geoffrey Phiri and Dr Kerstin Hacker will share the story behind the creation of Bakashimika, which launched in Lusaka in 2025 and brought together 40 Southern African artists across 20 exhibitions. Discover how this ground-breaking festival is shaping national and international conversations around photography, visual identity and cultural collaboration.
What to expect:
• Insights into the founding journey and creative vision.
• Introduction to featured artists and their work.
• Audience Q&A with the founders.
Dr Kerstin Hacker, Cambridge School of Art, will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the research and privilege-cognisant mentorship practices that helped bring Bakashimika to life. Learn how critical creative practice can drive international dialogue and foster new platforms for artistic expression.
This event is ideal for photographers, artists, curators, cultural producers and anyone who is interested in African visual storytelling and arts-led social change.
Visit Bakashimika.com to discover more or read our feature story: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/cambridge-festival-2026/bakashimika-southe...
Dr Kerstin Hacker is a leading researcher in decolonial photographic practice. Her work centres on collaborative methodologies to challenge (neo)colonial visual narratives and promote visual self-governance. She co-founded the Bakashimika International Photography Festival, and held fellowships at Cambridge Visual Culture (University of Cambridge) and the Affect and Colonialism Web Lab (Freie Universität Berlin). Her current project, Forty Buckets, in collaboration with painter Geoffrey Phiri and a village community in northern Zambia, explores the human impact of informal manganese mining. Dr Hacker’s research advances creative methodologies, fosters international partnerships and encourages collaborative knowledge creation. Her most recent research publication, entitled Us in Relation to the Universe: Collaborative North-South Photographic Practice Research, was published in 2022 in the journal Radical Pedagogy and the Photographic Image, London.
