Uche Okpa-Iroha (born in Enugu in 1972) is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist who mainly adopts photography as his preferred medium of artistic expression. He is a founding member of the Blackbox Collective and Invisible Borders Trans-African Organisation and in 2013, he founded and established The Nlele Institute, where he serves as Director. He is a two-time winner of the Seydou Keita Prize for photography, and he has also won the Jean-Paul Blachere prize. He currently lives and works in Lagos. Personal life and education Uche Okpa-Iroha was born on January 2, 1972, to Mr. Nwokocha Okpa-Iroha and Mrs. Chidi Okpa-Iroha. He has four other siblings. The family hails from Abia State in the South Eastern Niger Delta area of Nigeria. Okpa-Iroha is married to Ayo Joy Okpa-Iroha and they have two children. Uche Okpa-Iroha holds a Bachelor's degree in Food Science and Technology from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria which he completed in 1997. In 2013, he completed a two-year research residency and fellowship programme at the Rijksakademie in the Netherlands. Artistic style Uche Okpa-Iroha is multidisciplinary, his preference for photography and photojournalism as his preferred mediums is evident in his body of work. His works reflect the diversity and uniqueness of African communities. His contributions to the development of African photography have been inspired by his belief that representation and identity are some of the core issues hampering the development of African photography, based on the influence of stereotypes passed on from periods of colonized ruling. This informs his approach to his work, where he explores both intrinsic and extrinsic sources of inspiration to create various artistic expressions. His visual art style is a fusion of his interest in humanity, his fascination for the variety and complexity of human conditions and the interactions of these elements within their domestic environment that form the everyday realities of the common man and how that shapes the narrative of his culture. Career Uche Okpa-Iroha discovered his interest in photography in 2005, when he attended an exhibition hosted by the Nigerian collective Depth of Field (DOF) in London. He became a full-time professional photographer in 2006, having apprenticed under his cousin, the Prince Claus Laureate, Uche James Iroha. The following year, the Black Box Photography Collective was formed by Uche Okpa-Iroha and some friends as a community of photo-artistic enthusiasts. The group organized major exhibitions in Lagos, Nigeria and