By Tajudeen
Sowole
Late J.D.
‘Okhai Ojeikere, Nigerian-born British artist, Yinka Shonibare and Neil
Kenlock, Normski, Dennis Morris, Gavin Watson, Al Vandenberg, among 17 photographers, are currently showing Staying
Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s at Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), U.K.
The Museum is showing a collection of 118 works.
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From Yinka Shonibare’s Diary of a Victorian Dandy series |
The museum states on its website that the
exhibition, which runs till June 2015 is a project to increase the number of
black British photographers and images of black Britain in the V&A
collection. The show, which holds at two sections of the museum, according to the
organisers aims to raise awareness of the contribution of black Britons to
British culture and society, as well as to the art of photography. The display
includes 25 photographs, which opened at Black Cultural Archives on January 15,
ending June 30, 2015 and at the V&A gallery from February 16 – May 24,
2015.
Ojeikere (1930-2014) is showing eight pieces from his iconic gele (headdress) and African hairstyle
works on female fashion. Among the works are two pieces Untitled, 2005, from
the series Headties and Pineapple, 1969, from the series Hairstyles. The works are courtesy of The Estate of J. D. 'Okhai
Ojeikere and V&A.
Shonibare’s works include five pieces, all
from his Diary of a Victorian Dandy
series. The curatorial note says Shonibare’s work engages with his
cross-cultural heritage, challenging definitions of national identity and
history.
On the theme of the exhibition, the museum
recalls its interest of over the last seven years working with Black Cultural
Archives to acquire photographs by black photographers and origin in the U.K.
The project, it was stated has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
The museum added: “To complement the photographs, Black Cultural Archives have
collected oral histories from a range of subjects including the photographers
themselves, their relatives, and the people depicted in the images.”
Founded in 1981, Black Cultural Archives’
mission is to collect, preserve and celebrate the heritage and history of Black
people in Britain. They opened the UK’s first dedicated Black heritage centre
in Brixton, London in July 2014, enabling greater access to the archive
collection and providing dedicated learning spaces and an exciting programme of
exhibitions and events that explore British history from a unique perspective.
The archive collection offers insight into the history of people of African and
Caribbean descent in Britain and includes personal papers, organisational
records, rare books, ephemera, photographs, and a small collection of objects.
At 21, Ojeikere was
one of the only few photographers in the old Western Region of Nigeria. He
became a darkroom assistant at the Ministry of Information in Ibadan in 1954,
where he worked until 1961. He later worked as a photographer for Africa’s
first Television Station, The Western Nigerian Broadcasting Services, and for
West African Publicity in Lagos from 1963-1975. Ojeikere became a member of the
Nigeria Art Council in 1967. He travelled across Nigeria with the council and
began to document Nigerian culture, beginning a series of photographs
documenting Nigerian hairstyles in 1968. Over the course of his life Ojeikere
recorded more than a thousand hairstyles, as well as traditional headties. The
series of photographs, which includes both popular and ceremonial styles, is of
historic and anthropological significance, as well as aesthetic value.
Shonibare (MBE)
works across a range of artistic mediums including sculpture, painting,
photography and film. Born in London in 1962, Shonibare spent the majority of
his childhood in his parents’ birthplace of Lagos, Nigeria before returning to
London at the age of seventeen. He attended Byam Shaw School of Art (now part
of Central Saint Martins) and Goldsmiths College in the late 1980s, becoming
part of the generation of Young British Artists (YBAs).
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