Tender Photos has launched “Anwuli: An Invitation to Joy,” the inaugural installment of Tender Visions, a cross-disciplinary commissioning program for photographers and writers based on the African continent.

The project launched online on October 8, 2025, at 5:00 PM WAT. Photo essays, stories, and conversations will be published on www.tenderphotos.com every Wednesday.

“Anwuli: An Invitation to Joy” features documentary photographer Amarachi Nnoli’s intimate portraits of individuals in a South-Eastern Nigerian village. The visual work is accompanied by Zenas Ubere’s reflective essay and Billie McTernan’s short story, blending documentary realism with literary imagination to celebrate Igbo identity, culture, and everyday life. The series will unfold over four weeks.

Tender Visions is supported by funding from the Open Society Foundations. Over the next year, the program will showcase work by thirteen photographers and twenty-six writers, providing photographers with opportunities to develop theme-based projects rooted in their local communities while fostering collaborative engagements with writers who produce creative and critical texts that contextualize the visual work. The program aims to create space for deeper engagement with visual storytelling in Africa and bring new narratives to local and international audiences.

About the Creators

Amarachi Nnoli is a Nigerian documentary photographer and artist whose practice explores women in different fields and their experiences in society, particularly women in her family. Her work archives Igbo cultural practices and documents the joys of everyday people.

Billie McTernan is a Ghana-based artist and writer whose work considers ways of expanding beyond traditional writing confines. She is interested in non-verbal and visual language systems, positioning her work at the intersection of literary and contemporary art.

Zenas Ubere is a Nigerian writer and editor. He was selected for Tender Photo’s 2024 editorial fellowship, LOATAD’s 2023 West African Writers Residency, and the 2022 SBMEN & Goethe Institut Art Writing and Criticism Workshop. He is the coordinator of Lolwe Academy.

Visit www.tenderphotos.com to experience “Anwuli: An Invitation to Joy.”