Johny Pitts

Black Bricolage brings together photographs, notebooks and documents that bear witness to Black experiences in Europe and beyond, between 2004 and 2024. From Paris to Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Lisbon, Rome, Marseille and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, to newer work that includes images made in Freetown, Salvador Bahia and the US deep South, Johny Pitts illuminates Afro-European and Afro-diaspora realities that are often made invisible or poorly represented. His approach refuses both nostalgia and stereotype, but rather favours the ordinary: informal conversations, cafés, community centres, daily commutes, living spaces. His work is built through proximity, listening and exchange, in the company of workers, activists, musicians, educators, students and researchers alike. Pitts’s hauntological gaze connects each city he visits to its colonial past, its history and its present. This is not a bird’s-eye view, but a collection of fragments, patiently assembled through encounter.

40 pages
Riso Printed
Edition of 250
With additional A5 booklet - a missing chapter from Afropean (the Penguin publication)

PRESS — Johny Pitts & Afropean
EL PAÍS
British Journal of Photography
Dazed
The Eye of Photography
Photobooks We Love from 2024 - PhMuseum
Top 10 (+1) Photobooks of 2024 - 1000 Words Mag
The 7 Best Photography Books of 2024 - WIRED
Photobooks of 2024: Part II - Photobookstore

Watch Johny Pitts in conversation with The Eyes at Paris Photo here.
Watch Johny Pitts discuss his processes and the importance of Paris within his work: Paris Noir : L’histoire capitale des artistes afro-descendants | Tracks | ARTE
Listen to the Afropean Podcast here.