About Me

I am a social anthropologist and photographer based in Bern, Switzerland and working as a freelance cultural mediator in the field of arts and museums. My special interests lie in contemporary African arts, African religions and the artistic forms of expression associated with them.
Since 2003, I have spent several months each year in Ghana, where I also carried out field research for my thesis and PhD for several years. The main results of my research were published in text and images in “Concealed Art. The Figurative Palanquins and Coffins of Ghana” (Till Schaap Edition, Bern 2014).

To learn more about my publications, my collaborations with artists & museums and my travel photography, please visit @regulatschumi.ch

I first became interested in photography in Ghana, where I used my camera to document my fieldwork. However, it was only after completing my PhD that I finally had enough time to take photography more seriously. To hone my skills and learn about different genres and approaches, I attended several workshops led by renowned photographers such as Peter Turnley, Ernesto Bazan, Maciej Dakowicz and Magnum photographer Nikos Economopoulos.
In recent years, I have travelled to various countries in Europe, South America and Asia, developing my passion for street photography along the way. However, I continued to return to Ghana for several months every year to work on long-term projects relating to my anthropological interests and photography.
 
I love to photograph in Ghana because I believe the better that I know a country, the more exciting it becomes to work there. As an anthropologist, I not only search for beauty in my photography but also for content. I need to understand what I photograph. This is particularly important when it comes to spiritual things, such as religious rituals and celebrations, which are of particular interest to me. I also want to be able to speak to the people I photograph, know their faith and cultural background, and share everyday life with them. This is only possible if I live in the same place for a long time, and I am not just a visitor in transit. For this reason, I always like to go back to some places or attend the same events several times, always trying to take better pictures than before. I also try to capture the changes and different moods of a place or event over a longer period. Then, maybe, with enough persistence, one day, I will take that magical photograph of which I have always been dreaming.

This website contains various albums, each with a constantly changing selection of photographs from my long-term projects in Ghana. Most of the images were taken between 2016 and 2025.