Sanlé Sory

The first monograph on the Burkinabé photographer Sanlé Sory, whose unforgettable images capture a country at the dawn of its independence

In 1957, a teenager from a small village arrived in the Burkinabé city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Struck by the importance of ID pictures in this urban setting – and impressed by the prices photographers taking them could command – he learned the trade of shooting and processing photographs. Three years later, the same year Burkina Faso gained full independence from France, seventeen-year-old Sanlé Sory opened his own photo studio, Volta Photo.

Over the following three decades, Sory became one of the most renowned photographers in West Africa, respected for documenting slices of life in a rapidly changing social and political landscape. Along with the distinctive ID photos and laid-back outtakes he captured in his own studio, Sory was a dedicated chronicler of his city’s nightlife, creating a visual record of youth culture in Burkina Faso’s early post-colonial days.

This stunning book, the first monograph on Sory’s work, features more than two hundred of his arresting black-and-white photographs, including both studio portraits and nightlife photography. The book’s imagery is complemented by insightful texts, including an essay from Sory reflecting on his life and career. Created in close collaboration with the artist, Sanlé Story is not only an essential volume for fans and collectors, but an immersive visual journey that transports readers into the exciting, vibrant world of post-colonial West Africa.

Sanlé Sory (born in 1943) is a Burkinabé photographer. In 1960, the same year as Burkina Faso (then the Republic of Upper Volta) gained full independence from France, Sory founded his photo studio, Volta Photo Portrait Studio. Over three decades, he captured and chronicled life in the city of Bobo, creating a vibrant record of its people and the West African culture it is known for.

Florent Mazzoleni is a French author and producer specialising in West African music. He has worked collaboratively with Sanlé Sory for more than a decade, bringing Sory’s work to an international audience.

Dr Taous R. Dahmani is a London-based French, British, and Algerian art historian specialising in photography. She has curated both group and solo exhibitions internationally, including the 2022 Louis Roederer Discovery Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles (France) and the 2024 Jaou Photo Biennale in Tunis (Tunisia). Her solo curatorial projects include SMITH at NOUA (Bodø, Norway), Anastasia Samoylova at the Saatchi Gallery (London, UK), and Adam Rouhana at Kyotographie (Kyoto, Japan). Since September 2025, she is Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery (London, UK). Dahmani’s writing has been widely published in photobooks and journals, with contributions to titles by Phaidon, Loose Joints, Textuel, and Tate Publishing, as well as features in Aperture, FOAM, Camera Austria, The British Journal of Photography, Dazed, GQ, and 1000 Words Magazine. She is the associate editor of Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s–90s Britain (MACK/Autograph ABP, 2024), a critically acclaimed, award-winning publication. In November 2025, in collaboration with FOMU, she is releasing a publication titled Assemblies. From 2023 to 2025, Dahmani was associate lecturer at UAL/LCC. 

Hiroshi Egaitsa is a DJ, writer and lecturer who works both in Tokyo and Koyo. He is one of the pioneers of Tokyo DJs emerged in 1990s and has been lecturing at Kyoto Seika University and Tokyo University of the Arts.

Charlotte Flint is a curator and writer based in London. She is a senior editor at Phaidon Press, and her book Tee A. Corinne: A forest fire between us (published by MACK) was shortlisted for the 2025 Arles Historical Book Award and the 2025 Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Photography Book Award.

Esther Hien is a French-Burkinabè curator, archivist, ceramicist, and the founder of Wä Dé, an online platform focused on West Africa. Her works explore African aesthetics, fashion, visual culture, and cultural preservation. She has collaborated with fashion brands and artists from Africa and the diaspora. Her works have been featured in collective exhibitions in Paris, London and New York.

David Hill studied photography at Berkshire College of Art & Design and dealt in rare and professional cameras for several years before embarking on a two-decade career in the music industry. Seeking a change, he opened a photography gallery in 2015, which soon became known for showcasing previously unseen bodies of work. In 2017, David Hill Gallery was the first to show the photographs of Sanlé Sory, who immediately received international acclaim, with exhibitions following in New York, Amsterdam and Paris. This led to the representation of Benin’s Rachidi Bissiriou and other West African artists, an area of photography that the gallery is still closely associated with. In 2025, David was appointed as Photography Editor of Now Voyager, a US-based print magazine covering current affairs, arts, culture and travel.

Nicolas Niarchos is a freelance journalist. His work has been published by The New Yorker, The Nation, The New York Times, and other publications.

Aurélia Niat Toundji is a curator, researcher, and art director whose work explores African and Black contemporary visual culture, art, and style.