Twenty years, one question: What does it mean to be Black and European?

Twenty years, one question: What does it mean to be Black and European? Culture

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12:06

Issued on: 23/04/2026 - 17:13Modified: 23/04/2026 - 17:14

12:06 min Share Play (12:06 min) From the show Reading time 1 min

For 20 years, British photographer Johny Pitts has been travelling around Europe with a camera and a question: what does it actually mean to be Black and European? His answer fills a room at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. "Black Bricolage" brings together photographs, notebooks and documents from cities across the continent – Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Marseille and Brussels – capturing the ordinary lives that rarely make the front page. 

Eve Jackson meets the man who made the word "Afropean" his life's work – a term born in the world of music that he turned into a 20-year photographic journey across the continent – to talk identity, colonial ghosts, the racist backlash facing a Paris mayor and a Harry Potter actor, and why he believes Europe has a picture of itself it hasn't yet dared to look at. 

By: Eve JACKSON Solène CLAUSSE Stéphane BODENNE Magali FAURE Amélia MARADAS Marion CHAVAL Loïc CHALAVON Laura DI BIASIO Advertising Related keywords

• culture
• Photography
• Europe
• European Union
• UK
• UK culture