this project follows photographers brian hill (amsterdam, the netherlands) and stan engelbrecht (cape town, south africa) as they complete weekly assignments they set for themselves.

brian hill

the chase, streets of amsterdam, netherlands

johan cruyff, dutch football legend. also a legend in barcelona.

stan engelbrecht

zakaria antony mwiru with a sculpture of popobawa, stone town, zanzibar island, tanzania

during this, my second trip to zanzibar island, i decided to try and find out more about the legend of popobawa. i first heard about popobawa 7 years ago when i noticed graffiti all over stone town warning people about popobawa. i asked many people about it but hardly anyone would speak to me about what popobawa was - people were just too scared to talk about it. i finally got enough information to figure out that the popobawa was some kind of supernatural being that molests you, and can kill you, in your sleep. it could fly and had the face of a human being. this is all i could get out of people. on this last trip people were a bit more open to speak about it. it has been 8 years since the height of the popobawa paranoia. nowadays it gets laughed off, but there have been some recent incidents - in the last year there were some molestations and sighting connected to the popobawa and a man who was suspected of being this creature in human form was killed by a local mob. from the few descriptions and accounts i managed to collect i was able to commission local zanzibari artist,

zakaria antony mwuri, to recreate the likeness of popobawa in a sculpture.

the legend of the popobawa hails from pemba island, north of zanzibar. he is a sexual predator that flies to zanzibar, and sometimes to the mainland, to search out his victims, in the form of a bird with a human head. he is a shape-shifter that moves at night, and can appear as anything or anyone, but most commonly appears as a hawks body, with the face of a mature adult man, and the ears of a bat.