Tecno has partnered with visual artist Angélica Dass on a two-year photography project called 100 Portraits of Becoming, which will document 100 people across Kenya, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Brazil.
The project starts in Kenya with 20 portraits and personal stories. Tecno says the series looks at how people define themselves through work, family, ambition, identity, and change, rather than treating each participant as a stand-in for a wider culture or generation.
Dass says the project grew from a question that has shaped her work for years: who gets to define a person? In the accompanying video, she says conversations with participants guide each portrait, giving people more control over how they are represented.
Tecno is also using the project to showcase Universal Tone
The project also serves as a showcase for Tecno’s Universal Tone imaging technology, which is designed to reproduce a wider range of skin tones more accurately. Tecno says the technology is meant to reduce the risk of people being rendered according to a single visual standard.
Dass says the camera system helped her capture participants without smoothing over or correcting away details. Tecno has pointed out that accurate representation is becoming more important as AI takes on a larger role in facial recognition and image generation. For the photos from Kenya, Dass has used the Tecno Camon 50 Ultra 5G smartphone.
The project will move to four more countries
The Philippines will be the next stop, with 20 participants, including working solo mothers and people connected to solo parenthood. Saudi Arabia is scheduled to follow later this year, while Türkiye and Brazil are planned after that. By the end of the two-year project, Tecno and Dass expect to have 100 portraits and 100 stories collected across the five countries.
