Introduction by Aida Aicha Bodian, founder of Nebua World / Made in collaboration with Leica Camera Italia
I love stories. I believe in their weight, their quiet power. Each of us carries one—extraordinary in its simplicity, or ordinary in its brilliance. What matters is that it exists, that it’s unique, and that at least once, it’s allowed to be seen, heard, and told.
That’s why I asked Ayzoh!, and their exceptional photographers, to create We Are Nebua—this magalog. A space where presence becomes narrative, where faces and names are honored without filters, where complexity is allowed to speak.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk The Danger of a Single Story has always resonated with me. It echoes the experiences of many Afro-descendant children who grow up loving books but rarely find themselves inside them.
But I wanted to go further. We can’t settle for pointing out the danger. We need to act. We need to rewrite.
Relying on a single narrative is not just limiting—it’s damaging. Especially for those of us who live at the intersections of identity and society. For those who are too often reduced to tropes, framed through lenses not their own, spoken of but not listened to. I’ve lived through that. Many of us have.
We’re no longer in a world that can afford such narrow views. If we care about inclusion, we must work actively to unlearn what we’ve absorbed, to recognize what’s missing, and to make room for other voices. That means listening—really listening. With care, with openness, with intention.
Telling multiple stories doesn’t just add nuance—it shifts power. It gives back dimension to people who have been flattened. It challenges what’s assumed. It restores truth.
On my own journey toward clarity and purpose, I created Nebua World—not only as a platform, but as a business that could help reshape narratives and create — here, in Paris — new spaces for Afro-descendant women in Italy and France. Not aspirational versions. Not edited ones. Real ones.
We Are Nebua is a first step in that direction. In these pages, you’ll meet entrepreneurs, activists, students, athletes, artists, writers, public officials, bloggers—women who are shaping Italian society in visible and invisible ways.
Through Ayzoh!’s photography, their stories are offered with respect. With light. With silence where needed. In black and white or in color, these images carry more than aesthetics—they carry memory, dignity, resistance, joy, and everyday life.
This is not about representation as performance. This is about presence. And presence, when made visible, is a form of freedom.
— Aida Aicha Bodian
