Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Pictures:Photographer captures the beauty of Nigerian women's hairstyles

Celebrated Nigerian master photographer J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere passed away in February aged 84. But he has left a rich and diverse body of work, which thanks to several of his fellow countrymen, is now being offered to a global audience to explore. His images are named after the place and date he'd shot them, indicating the anthropological direction of his work. This photograph is entitled "Modern Suku, 1979." Meanwhile, a touring exhibition of Ojeikere's "Hairstyles and Headdresses" is currently being presented by Hayward Touring Exhibition in the UK. Curator Gillian Fox says: "Ojeikere was keen in the wake of modernization to capture something that was quite intrinsic to his culture, his nation and he saw the rate of change that was happening and he thought hairstyles were fascinating and an art form in their own right."<!-- --> </br>
She adds: "You have the anthropological study because he was just documenting our culture -- the culture he believed was fading away because of modernity, because of world migration. He wanted to document all these things he grew up with -- all these images, festivals, ceremonies."<!-- --> </br>Ojeikere may have started the lifelong project unconsciously but it soon became evident that he had captured something important, says Bisi Silva, the founder of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA). Silva has spent the last five years working on an anthology of Ojeikere's work. Ojeikere's more prolific collection is his "Hairstyles" series for which he garnered international success. Spanning over 60 years, he snapped hundreds of women, taking his muses from their work, home and daily routines to visually document the changing hairstyles. He soon saw parallels between the changing fashion styles and the newly-independent nation coming to terms with post-colonization. Silva hopes that one day, the mammoth monograph she has helped create will help people learn about Nigeria from a different perspective. "He has arts and culture, theater performances, children, landscapes, so many. Hopefully it will entice, encourage others to delve into the archive and bring to visibility the other works he's done."
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