Curator Selection / 2020 / /

Jamestown

Jamestown is one of the oldest districts of the city of Accra. In this immense space bordering the sea, a vast community of fishermen live and work, fishing being their main source of survival.
The place, built from a cluster of hundreds of informal slum-like habituations, is a microcosm of life where one is only able to enter with the right people.
The selected images focus on the activity of these fishermen during the low season, an important pause in time to take care of the necessary tools for work.

João Miguel Barros was born in 1958, in Lisbon, Portugal.
He is a Lawyer by profession, in Lisbon and Macau.
He was co-director of the SEMA culture and visual arts magazine published in Lisbon between 1979 and1982.
In 2017 began to exhibit his photography work, with individual exhibitions at “Creative Macau - Center for Creative Industries”, Macau (Feb. 2017) and at “Museu Berardo”, Belem Cultural Center, Lisbon, Portugal (from Feb. to Aug. 2018). He has participated in several group exhibitions.
He published two photobooks: “Between Gaze and Hallucination” (self-published) in 2018

Awards - Selected artist of YICCA - International Contest of Contemporary Art, Milan, 2017/18, with a photo for the project “Tribute”.
- 3º Award in the category “Press” of the Prix de la Photographie (PX3), Paris, with the project “Blood, Sweat and Tears”
- 1º Award in the category “Editorial / Sports (Non-Prof.) of the International Photography Awards, 2018, New York, with the project “Blood, Sweat and Tears”.
- Honorable Mention in the category “People: Other” of the ND Awards 2018, with the project “Tribute”.
- Honorable Mention in the category “Nature: Trees” of the ND Awards 2018, with the project “Loneliness Tree”.