Congolese photographer Pamela Tulizo uses costume and vivid scenery to celebrate women’s strength and give a new perspective on slavery

Pamela Tulizo’s latest series of photographs started with a question. “I asked myself, why are women in my community in particular, and African women in general, so strong?” says Tulizo, an artist and photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Where does this strength come from?”

Growing up in Goma in eastern DRC, Tulizo was informed and inspired by the women she was surrounded by, including her mother, her sisters, her mother’s friends and her neighbours.

Women are placed at the centre of the series of 23 staged photographs