عبد الرحمن يوسف
SOMALICabdiraxman YusufApprox. “ab-di-rah-maan yoo-suf”
ARABICعَبْد الرَّحْمَٰن يُوسُفʿAbd ar-Raḥmān Yūsuf
Ways of seeing.
Ways of making.
Cabdiraxman Yusuf is a Somali photographer, curator and cultural producer, also published and professionally credited as Abdirahman Yusuf. His practice connects making images with creating spaces where Somali stories and artistic work can be encountered.
About the practice · Full biographySomalia’s inaugural national pavilion.
Commissioner · 2026
Cover photograph & photo essay · The Continent · 2020
Photography, painting, film and poetry by Somali women artists.
National Museum of Somalia, MogadishuHead Curator · 2025
Construction Supervisor · AfDB-funded DRSLPII
Personal photography · cyprints
Photographer
Exhibited, curated, produced and commissioned. Selected exhibitions, with roles and collaborators recorded.
Photography is where my practice began. The ordinary life of Mogadishu—its gestures, encounters and changing streets—continues to shape the way I look. The city offers stories that are easily missed when its image is reduced to crisis.
Making photographs led me to another question: where can this work be seen, and who gets to shape the encounter? In a city with few platforms for contemporary art and photography, creating spaces for work became part of the work itself.
That concern connects my photography with exhibition-making, cultural production and advisory work. It runs through projects at the National Museum of Somalia, including HOY — Home and A Window to Her Worlds, which I served as Head Curator in 2025.
It also informs my cultural advisory work with the Office of the Prime Minister and my role as Commissioner of SADDEXLEEY, Somalia’s inaugural national pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia in 2026.
My training in civil engineering brings another attention to space: how it is built, used and shared. Across these different forms of practice, I return to the relationship between the stories we tell and the places that allow them to be encountered.
I welcome conversations, commissions and collaborations that make room for Somali artists and cultural practitioners, in Somalia and internationally.
Published and professionally credited as Abdirahman Yusuf.
Structural design, construction supervision and rehabilitation. Selected projects include the AfDB-funded DRSLPII programme with Save the Children and residential construction with Ugbaad Developers in Nairobi.
Read the DRSLPII projectSave the Children
Ugbaad Developers
Ispees Design Studio
Deer Architects
Communications strategy, field documentation and visual production across development, justice and environmental programmes. A mix of contracts and consultancies, including parallel engagements.
MSI / Tetra Tech
Pact / American Bar Association
Norwegian Refugee Council
Ministry of Environment
and Climate Change
Photography, exhibition-making and cultural production connect with advisory work through a shared concern: how Somali artists and cultural practitioners can present their work and shape their own stories. This includes work with the Office of the Prime Minister, the National Museum of Somalia and Somalia’s inaugural pavilion in Venice.
Explore the exhibitionsVenice / Mogadishu
Photography / Exhibitions
BSc Civil Engineering
Bahauddin Zakariya University · 2014–2018
Published stories and photographs from the cyprints archive, with editorial credits and links to the original publications.
Politics, public life and everyday experience in Somalia. Selected photographs and published stories.
A photographic account of the people caring for patients at De Martini Hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic, accompanied by my experience of documenting their work.
COVER PHOTOGRAPH & PHOTO ESSAY
Words and photography: Abdirahman Yusuf
Issue 16 · 15 August 2020 · Pages 15–19
Also published by Mail & Guardian · 16 August 2020
Published in Africanews coverage in 2021 and 2022.
View the published credit
Photographs in circulation, exhibitions in public, and places where the work continues.
Original publications open in a new tab. Photography bylines retain the name Abdirahman Yusuf.