Sanne de Wilde & Bénédicte Kurzen: Land of Ibeji

Portraits of a Nigerian town's unusually high twin population, in a prize-winning series

In 2018, photographers Sanne de Wilde (born 1987) and Bénédicte Kurzen (born 1980) traveled to Igbo-Ora, Nigeria, to attend the regional Twin Festival along with some 2,000 pairs of twins. The southwestern town has one of the world's highest occurrences of twins, with at least one pair in nearly every family.

As the two photographers sought to trace this history, they employed a number of different mirroring techniques--double apertures, double exposures and reflections--to create a vibrant series of portraits reflective of the duality central to their project.

These portraits of Igbo-Ora's twin population are dazzling in their rich, colorful stories and expressive subjects, who pose before the camera in a variety of scenes. No two photographs in this prize-winning series are alike.