Pariah

Pariah (2024), is an exploration of black creative praxis in appeal for justice. It references James Baldwin’s assertion that the black artist’s imperative is to make art as praxis.

Pariah (2024), is an exploration of black creative praxis in appeal for justice. It references James Baldwin’s assertion that the black artist’s imperative is to make art as praxis, as detailed by Monika Gehlawat in Baldwin and the Role of the Citizen Artist. The black artist must record and document their conditions and modulations, affirming visual tapestries and fantasies rooted in their tribulations and liberation. Thus, Pariah is a textual and visual exploration of West African femininity within the context of contemporary nihilism, degradation, and neo-colonialism. It navigates the text, “They said 1000 will fall by my side, and 10000 by my right, but no evil shall befall me. Yet here I am, a contradiction, a tumbling of death and life. I am the 1000 and 10000, the audacity to walk, The death that comes, the plead for safety, and the trembling horror”, visually examining black women as they gaze, whisper, and scream in the corners of Europe. Conveying a story of loss, apathy, revitalisation, and liberation, Pariah is a literary and photography study of womanhood within the decadence of colonial apathy. It is visual tapestries of black women hesitating, waiting, and deliberating within the confines of contemporary carnage. Dusted in blue they numb their restlessness and grief, and adorned in red they dash in grievance, appealing with the universe for justice. Pariah is a photography and literary retrospective of Blue Dust, Yellow Doom (2022)- a dreamlike and granular photography and installation body of work, processing the societal decay enabled by the Nigerian neo-colonial government, and the revolutionary perseverance and nationalism of the Nigerian people. In this, Pariah further affirms the beautiful tonalities of the black experience within the havoc of colonial violence. It stretches a West African visual tale within the streets and homes of Geneva, recording our devastations, dissociations, and regenerations.