Carlos Idun-Tawiah Ghanaian, b. 18/5/1997

In a dim bar, a young woman and a young man sit close at the corner of a table. She wears a white lace dress with flowered trim at the shoulders, star-shaped earrings, a bag strap across her body, and rests a hand at her own chin. He wears a patterned short-sleeved shirt and a small round cap, and lays his hand along her forearm. His stool is upholstered in black and white checks. Behind them a woman in a ruffled blouse moves past the bar, a saxophonist in white is perched and playing, and two large painted faces watch from the wall.

This is a picture pretending to be a different kind of picture. The lace, the cap, the checked stool, the live band, the black and white: all of it belongs to the Saturday-night photograph that West African studios and bars turned out by the thousand, the sort of print that got carried in a wallet until it wore through at the folds. Idun-Tawiah is not copying any one photographer. He is manufacturing a genre, with the props and the patience of somebody who has looked hard at a great many of the originals.

On a chalkboard at the right edge a concert is advertised in chalk: salsa, a name, a date. The board does what the whole photograph does, which is promise an evening. The title asks whether it ever sold anyone a dream, and the honest answer is that it is selling one right now and has left the receipt in the frame. What no props can fake is the last thing left. These two are genuinely delighted, and they are looking at each other rather than at us.