The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture—Photographs from the Walther Collection

Curated from the holdings of the Walther Collection, The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture was an ambitious photography exhibition that occupied the Main Gallery and the University Gallery of the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto. In conversation with the bourgeoning interest in African photography and the critical discourse around the fractures in Africa's photographic archives, The Way She Looks attended to gendered subjectivities and centered women as both the subject to the photographer's gaze and the photographer. Photographs spanned from the late nineteenth century to the contemporary period, where the exhibit invited viewers into the bold aesthetics of a geographically diverse collection. Situated as a conversation among creatives, scholars, and art enthusiasts, the show was a retrospective on the diversity and representation of African women behind and in front of the camera, and a cogitation on the futurity of the women's power in African...