I am a photographer and filmmaker based in Nairobi and Paris. 

I grew up in West Virginia, but spent most summers in my family’s village in southern India. I majored in African Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and received a masters degree, also in African Studies, from Oxford. My research there looked at the construction of media narratives around Somalia. To be useful, I make work to challenge these narratives and to acknowledge the complexity of histories and conflicts in the Global South.

I speak French, Spanish, and Telugu and get by in Swahili and Arabic. I have completed first aid and hostile environment training.


2018 Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short
2017 Firelight Media Short Film Grant
2016 "Over There” Exhibition, Annex Gallery
2016 Exhibition at Women Deliver, Copenhagen
2015 One World Media Awards Short Film Nominee
2014 RISC Benefit Show, Aperture Gallery
2013 Look 3 Festival Scholarship
2012 Photo Lucida Critical Mass Finalist
2012 Ian Parry Scholarship Group Show
2012 Lucie Foundation Photo Mentorship Program
2012 "The Day I was Destroyed" Exhibition, Annex Gallery
2011 "Coal Colony" Exhibition, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford


roopa.gogineni@gmail.com