Cristina De Middel is a former photojournalist who distributed her 2012 narrative photobook The Afronauts from her bedroom. It was nominated for this year's Deutsche Börse prize.

In her first book, The Afronauts, De Middel engages with myths and truths, reality and fiction. In 1964, after gaining independence, Zambia started a space programme in order to send the first African astronaut to the moon. De Middel sequences her beautiful colour photography with manipulated documents, drawings and reproductions of letters, presenting them as almost folkloric inlays alongside fashion illustrations and technical sketches.

We are excited to welcome Cristina to New Zealand for the first time.