KEKEA SAMOA-White Island
A young woman from the Snow White series told me about Samoa, an island in Polynesia, where her mother was born. That planted a little seed in my head that started to grow, I imagined Samoa to be a 'white island', a mysterious place inhabited by beautiful fair-skinned people. Samoans call people with albinism 'kekea', a somewhat unfriendly word that describes how their radiant white skin makes them 'shine' and stand out between the other dark skinned islanders. There is no real sense of discrimination on the island, the biggest enemy of the kekea-people is ignorance and the lack of protection while their fragile skin burns up under the tropical sun.
Sanne De Wilde
Sanne De Wilde in her photography explores the role genetics play in peoples lives and how this shapes and affects communities. Picturing people suffering from a condition making them vulnerable in the eye of society. She graduated with a Master in the Fine Arts at KASK in Ghent (BE) with great honours in 2012. Her photo series 'The Dwarf Empire' was rewarded with the Photo Academy Award 2012 as well as the International Photography Award Emergentes DST in 2013. Her serie ‘Snow White’ was awarded 16ème Prix National Photographie Ouverte and NuWork Award for Photographic Excellence. She was awarded the Nikon Press Award in 2014 and 2016 for most promising young photographer.
The British Journal of Photography selected De Wilde as one of 'the best emerging talents from around the world' in 2014 and recently received the Firecracker Grant 2016, PHmuseum Women's Grant and de Zilveren Camera award for 'The Island of the Colorblind' and most recently won a World Press Photo for her collaborative project with NOOR Photographer Benedicte Kurzen for "Land of Ibeji" in 2019. She has been internationally published (Guardian, New Yorker, Le Monde, CNN, Vogue) and exhibited (Voies OFF, Tribeca Film Festival, Circulations, Lagos Photo, Lodz Fotofestiwal, IDFA, STAM and EYE).
Since 2013, De Wilde works with the Dutch newspaper and magazine De Volkskrant, in Amsterdam the Netherlands and joined NOOR in 2017.
