More than us, the 2024 Lavazza calendar tells the value of collaboration

We previewed the Lavazza 2024 calendar and we found out a whole different Africa. Inside, there are photos that in these dark and complex times they do a lot of good. We bring you some of the most evocative shots of this remarkable choral project signed by artists such as Thandiwe Muriukeniyota, Daniel ObasiNigerian, e Aart VerripsSouth African.

More than Us is the title and theme of the calendar by Lavazza that he shows us a continent in transformationfull of contaminations and surprises, caught during a trip in twelve months in a changing Africa, who bets on the future and on itself.

The making of The project was complex: we moved between Kenya (in July, in the cold season…), South Africa, Nigeria, Congo. «Every now and then there were some small inconveniences but the beauty of traveling in Africa is that there is a village, everywhere, ready to help you. You are never alone”, explains a Vanity Fair Thandiwe Muriu, 33 years old, delightful and talented photographer (she is currently having a solo exhibition in Paris, next year we will see her at the Venice Biennale for a collateral event). Her shots are iconic. Look at this, for example:

Muriu for years works on the representation of the feminine, he puts his women “in wallpaper”: «They almost seem to hide inside the patterns of the clothes, don’t they? Yet, by doing so, I establish their importance and their value”, she explains, defining herself as aartist-activist who has breathed the air of emancipation since she was little. «My grandmother was the first woman in my village, in Kenya, to go to school: her mother worked two jobs to pay for her studies. I grew up knowing that I would find my way by learning to be independent and that to do so I had to have the right tools: study, use the Internet well, find ways to express myself. I believe that photography is the eye with which I interpret reality: the Africa I show is one New Africa, a colorful and diverse continent that does not forget its tradition but is also open to modernity. This be hybrid he is part of my generation and I think that my shots are symbolic of the time we are living in”, he explains.

It is true. If you look closely at the works of the three photographers who composed this “plural African calendar” can be seen in every photograph presented desire for redemption: all three authors, and the photos you see here demonstrate it, have tried to change the visual narrative of the continentshowing stories in which beauty, the collaborationfemale emancipation are the protagonists.

We see it in visionary and dreamlike works Of Daniel Obasiwho lives between Lagos and Paris (he recently published Beautiful Resistance, a collection of short stories that reimagines Lagos as a magical place where queer minorities hold power). Here are two examples of “his” Africa:

And we also see it in the shots of Aart VerripsSouth African filmmaker and photographer originally from Durban, who chose theSouth African activist Zulaikha Patelwinner of the Young Activist Summit 2022, champion against racism and ambitious law student, who already has her own non-profit foundation that fights for the literacy of children and adolescents. Here she is, in this shot from the Lavazza Calendar that speaks for itself:

«Ours is the generation of solutions – Patel, just over twenty years old, splendid and passionate, told us during the presentation of the Lavazza Calendar in Milan -: we are tired of ideas and proposals that fall on deaf ears. We twenty-year-olds today, all over the world, are determined to change the narrative of things. If in my country, South Africa, racism has been abolished by law decades ago, there is still a silent racism that exists in society: we must continue to fight against this and against every form of abuse. There can be no change without education and that’s where we need to start. I’m happy to have participated in such an interesting and innovative project like this one for the Lavazza Calendar because activism needs support true in order to be realized.”

And certainly Francesca Lavazzaboard member of the Lavazza Group, does not miss it: his enthusiasm at the presentation of More than Us (which also has Zulaikha Patel among its ambassadors Waris Diriewho has been involved in the fight against female genital mutilation for years, and the Nobel Prize Denis Mukwegeworld-renowned gynecological surgeon and founder of the Panzi Hospital in Bakavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with which the Lavazza Foundation collaborates): «We couldn’t not go to Africa, a symbolic and identifying place as the land of origin of the coffee bean, in the Kafa region, in Ethiopia, and of some of the sustainable development projects of the Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Onlus Foundation”. Born in 2004, today present with 33 projects in 3 continents, in 2024 the Foundation will celebrate its first twenty years of activity (to learn more, you can go here for the leading page of the project, created under the creative direction of the digital team of the Armando Testa Group, and with a series of podcasts created by Chora Media ).