Guy Tillim was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1962. He has received several awards for his work, such as the 2005 Leica Oskar Barnack Award for the "Joburg" series which documents the lives of the inhabitants of central Johannesburg. He has exhibited his work in numerous exhibitions, some of which focus on African art and photography; among the most recent, the exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery in London in August 2005, at the International Center of Photography in New York in March 2006 and at Documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007. "Petros Village" was exhibited at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere during FotoGrafia - Rome international festival 2006. He was awarded the first Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography by the Peabody Museum at Harvard University.