Yemoja

2020

Framed giclée on hahnemühle

Edition 1 of 5

890.9 x 594 mm

Tayo Adekunle is a London based Nigerian-British photographer. Working with self-portraiture and digital collage, she explores themes surrounding race, gender and sexuality. By placing historical imagery in a contemporary context, the relationship between the past treatment of black women’s bodies and their present treatment is explored.

Working a lot with self-portraiture, Tayo Adekunle uses her work to explore issues surrounding race, gender and sexuality as well as racial and colonial history. Reclamation of the Exposition explores the commodification, fetishisation and sexualisation of the black female body, specifically through the human displays in colonial expositions in the 18th and 19th centuries. Using self-portraiture and digital collage whilst drawing from Prince Roland Napoleon Bonaparte’s photographic collection ‘Boschimans et Hottentots’ the works combine the contemporary with historic ways of being seen. Referencing her Nigerian heritage, Adekunle explores the relationship between the past and present ways the black female body is treated. Yemoja explores Yoruba religion. The motherly Orisha is used as a symbol for healing from inherited trauma from slavery and the commodification of black bodies.