Namsa Leuba’s photographs deal with the representation of African identity through a fabricated lens of Western imagination. Spanning documentary, fashion, and performance, Leuba’s images draw from the semiotics of her upbringing and cultural heritage. Motifs derived from rituals, ceremonies, statuettes, and masquerades abound. Whether executed within her ancestral hometown of Guinea or in a constructed studio environment, Leuba’s works marry her anthropological interest in traditional customs with an aesthetic informed by fashion and design sensibilities. Adopting a theatrical approach with attention to props, colours, and gestures, Leuba works to examine the tension between opposing forces: fact and fiction, action and representation, sacredness, and secularity.