In 1947, as the first demonstrations calling for Ghana's independence were taking place, James Barnor began training in a photographic studio in Accra. Over the next four decades, driven by his limitless curiosity for the photographic medium, but also by sometimes difficult economic conditions that compelled him to reinvent himself, Barnor constantly moved around the gamut of photographic professions. His trajectory has revolved between the two poles of a world he has made for himself: Accra, his birthplace, and London, his adopted city.
In Stories Pictures from the Archive (1947-1987) James Barnor has assembled a portfolio of his favourite images, by re-examining his vast archive of 30,000 negatives and several hundred prints and period documents.
Following a chronological sequence, we travel from Ghana in the 1950s to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, then back to Ghana from the 1970s onwards. Whereas his work joins that of other West African photographers of the same generation, who are now well known, his continual departures and returns have made him part of a transcontinental history of photography.

Published on the occasion of the 2022 exhibition at LUMA Arles as part of the Rencontres d’Arles and the LUMA’s Living Archives Programme.