Kerstin Hacker

Kerstin is a documentary photographer and course leader for the MA Photography and BA Photography at the Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University. She is a recipient of the Agfa/Emma Female Photojournalist of the Year Award and is an Alexia Foundation alumna.

Kerstin Hacker holds a BA in Photography and a MA in Photography from the Academy of Applied Arts (FAMU) in Prague, Czech Republic. Her research interests explore the changing perception, representation and visual self-governance in Africa.

Her current research explores the emerging middle class in Lusaka, Zambia. She is photographing the emergence of a section of society, which is internationally aware, has travel experience and is politically active. The project also documents the westernisation of Lusaka with a developing consumer culture. It investigates how the widening access of the internet accelerates this change.

Kerstin Hacker examines photographically the impact of this development and asks why this change is rarely discussed in the UK. The study presents an alternative vision of ordinary, 21st century African life to the UK general public’s view. Since visual representations are often static and are shaped by the UK’s colonial past, the project examines if and how photography can contribute to a new, more dynamic understanding of the rapid economic and societal development of Zambia.

Kerstin Hacker received an Educational Partnerships in Africa grant from the British Council and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to develop a curriculum for the first BA Photography in Southern Africa (except in South Africa).