Photo: Mikael Owunna
Mikael Owunna, a man full of pride and purpose, has been an advocate for racial justice.
The young Nigerian-American photographer and writer speaks on the topic at length via his “Owning My Truth” blog and is recent work that chronicles the LGBTQ community. Entitled “Limit(less)” — Mikael Owunna leverages his digital skills, platforms, and Fulbright scholar status to document the aesthetics of first and second generation African immigrants whom identify with the LGBTQ community in the United States.
Questioning what this new aesthetic looks like for different individuals, “Limit(less)” seeks to answer these inquiries with a strong and passionate take on the lives and stories of LGBTQ African immigrants. Owunna began the project “pretty spontaneously”, after returning to the U.S. from his Fulbright scholarship in Taiwan, the digital media specialist moved back in his with his parents where his sexual fears and anxieties reappeared.
“I had lived a relatively free life,” he told OkayAfrica‘s Jen Sefa-Boakye. “Especially during college, so being back at home where certain topics, like my sexuality, were strictly ‘not to be discussed’ was a shock to my system.” In Africa, members of the LGBTQ community are routinely attacked and murdered as more and more evangelical pastors from the U.S. have arrived. Labeled as “un-African,” the Motherland has turned into ground-zero for radicalized violence, homophobic and transphobic sentiments and the demonization of lives.
Photo: Mikael Owunna
These actions have tremendously broken many African families, causing rifts between the two sides, and making it hard for peace to reign throughout the region. Owunna’s work, inspired by Zanele Muholi’s portrait series “Faces and Phases,” enabled the creative to resonate on the level experienced by his fellow LGBTQ community in Africa. After that, he researched and launched “Limit(less)” to explore the lives of LGBTQ Africans.
Unlike his contemporaries who focus on the sheer pain and frustration of living life against the odds, Mikael uses style to tell the visual narrative of the LGBTQ Africans. “I spent months envisioning a video documentary centered around our experiences of trauma,” he said. “My conversations with other artists include Atane Ofiaja and Siobhan McGuirk helped shift and then correct my lens.” Understanding that homo- and transphobia is en masse throughout the world, Mikael also noted how multidimensional his community is together. “We still laugh, experience joy, love and more,” he said. “We find ways to express ourselves and live out full lives as LGBTQ Africans despite these ostensible ‘limits’ on our existence.
The Duke Engineering alumnus will be heading to Trinidad to shoot someone else for the “Limit(less)” project in about a month, but other than that he is mainly freelancing. “The project is evolving as we speak and each shoot changes it slightly, but I see the work fitting well in a gallery space,” Owunna said.
Photo: Mikael Owunna
Through this project, Mikael Owunna is eager for this project to answer questions he himself has with his own sexuality and its place within the African identity. “I am drawing inspiration from all of the participants in the ways they bridge the suppose ‘divide’ between the [communities],” the published author said. “My hope is that by the end of the project I will have found what that visual aesthetic means for me as well.”
For more information on where you can possibly see “Limit(less)”, please click here and/or follow Mikael Owunna on social media.
[via OkayAfrica]
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