Force and beauty portraits of African immigrants living in different countries

Filmmaker and concurrently photographer Dagmar Van Wiegel explores culture and personality through portraits of African immigrants in his project called The Diaspora. Her proudly posing non-models, dressed in oriental clothes of past centuries, are the embodiment of eternal, calm elegance. Looking at these images, you involuntarily begin to think about the distorted, biased view of many people about what it means to be African in the West. Van Vigel says that she sought to achieve exactly this effect by creating these majestic and stunning portraits.

The woman says that she was originally inspired by the life experiences of her husband from Zimbabwe, who moved to Europe 9 years ago. This topic was even more fascinated by Van Vigel after a trip to Spanish Andalusia, which boasts rich Moorish history. Using these wonderful portraits, the photographer wants to highlight the importance of African settlers in European history.

In his series, Van Vigel hopes to show amazing strength and character. We can begin to build bridges of understanding by looking deeper and more consciously at a person, without attaching importance to his “otherness”. "These portraits are a tribute to African immigrants and their collective experience - past and present - and a tribute to their strength, stamina and perseverance. I hope that this work will also make us talk and help remind us of the important contribution that Africans have made throughout European history.".