“When I work, it’s always a performance that I choose to undertake. I link my body to this figure, because I want to translate its history.” The protagonist in all his images, Samuel Fosso is at once photographer and performer, both seeing eye and subject. Since the mid-1970s, when he opened his photographic studio aged only thirteen, Fosso has explored the intricacies of selfhood and identity. His work expands the definitions of autofiction, the characters he performs – cultural and political figures, social stereotypes and popular imaginings – in turns historical, aspirational, invented and intimate. “Clothes help me tell the character’s story and share their own emotions,” he says of his performed selves. “But most of all, the clothes help me understand them. Once I press the camera button, I am the character, I am not myself anymore.”