Who We Are
PLATFORM 2020 is a pioneering online educational hub for documentary photography with a special focus on Africa and SWANA. Our goal is simple: to make world-class photography education affordable, accessible and rooted in community.
We know how expensive photography can be, and how many talented voices, especially across Africa and SWANA, are often priced out of opportunities to learn and grow. PLATFORM 2020 was created to change that. Instead of you travelling to access workshops that feel out of reach, we’re bringing the learning directly into your home, wherever you are in the world.
The name 2020 carries the spirit of its origin. Conceived during a moment of global stillness and reflection, it stands as a metaphor for clarity of vision. It’s a reminder to look closer, to see with empathy and precision and to imagine new ways of storytelling.
Through recorded courses, live talks and extended workshop programmes, PLATFORM 2020 is the go-to space for developing creative voices, providing mentorship and celebrating the diversity of documentary practices emerging from underrepresented geographies.
Our mission is to equip the next generation of photographers with skills, confidence and opportunities to tell their own stories: stories that matter, stories that travel.
Laura El-Tantawy, Founder & Creative Director
Laura El-Tantawy is an award-winning British-Egyptian documentary photographer, bookmaker and educator whose work moves through questions of home, belonging and the human condition. Working across image, sound and personal narrative, she has built an internationally recognised practice shaped by emotional depth, formal experimentation and a sustained commitment to lived experience.
Her work has received major international recognition, including the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Award and honours and nominations such as the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, Prix Virginia and the PhMuseum Women’s Grant.
PLATFORM 2020 grows out of that experience and out of a clear belief: that photography education must be more accessible, more culturally grounded and more accountable to the people and places from which it speaks. Rooted in Africa and SWANA, the platform exists to support photographers and visual storytellers with serious ambition, while helping shift the centre of gravity of who gets heard, who gets taught and who gets to lead.
Drawing on a life and practice shaped across East and West, Laura leads PLATFORM 2020 as a founder-run project: independent, intentional and built with care. Its programmes are guided by rigour, generosity and a commitment to voices emerging from within the regions and realities the platform holds close. Guest practitioners, collaborators and new chapters will be introduced as the platform continues to grow.