Youth, Art and Work are the three pillars underpinning the partnership between Milan’s Scuola Superiore D’Arte Applicata (SUPER), Fondazione Aurora, the Afro Fashion Association and the Free Academy of Fine Arts Laba Douala (Cameroon) to support young talents seeking to improve their skills to enter the labour market.

In this framework, the four organisations combined their resources and expertise to realise a first joint action: a training course in photography open to Italian and Cameroonian students.

Officially launched on 9 May 2022, the first course, “Tracing Identities Through Fashion Photography”, proposed an intensive online training programme of 30 hours for students in Italy and Cameroon, with the aim of fostering the employment of young Italian and Cameroonian talents in the field of fashion photography.

During the course, professors Filippo Romano – NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti – and Rudy Petgang – Laba Douala held modules on the basics of portraiture, photographic production techniques, the visual identity of a photographer and the realization of a personal photographic project. From the very first lesson, students will try out the techniques learnt through the study of their own context.

At the end of the course, each student is supported in the creation of a digital portfolio as a concrete tool to facilitate access to the labour market. In July, the 6 most promising students – 3 from Cameroon and 3 from Italy – were invited to a webinar to meet important stakeholders. On 21 September 2022, the students’ works were displayed in a virtual exhibition in the metaverse, at the opening of Afro Fashion Week in Milan.

→ Learning the basics of portrait photography: composition, lighting, color temperature and retouching.
→ Learning how to see and capture details.
→ Identifying what is needed in the surrounding world in fashion photography.
→ Learning to organise the subjects of photographs in a way that communicates the design idea and makes it readable in a streamlined and technically independent manner.
→ Learning to present oneself as a fashion photographer and to organise work.

→ 30 hours of training delivered between May and July 2022
→ 50 enrolled students from SUPER Scuole Civiche di Milano, Laba Douala and The Unseen Profiles
→ 30 students selected
→ 19 students completed the course with 80% or more attendance and realised the digital portfolios created
→ 1 webinar to connect students with potential mentors
→ 1 virtual exhibition in the Metaverse