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In considered one of his famed self-portraits, Omar Victor Diop, a Senegalese photographer and artist, wears a three-piece go well with and an extravagant paisley bow tie, making ready to blow a yellow, plastic whistle. The elaborately staged {photograph} evokes the reminiscence of Frederick Douglass, the one-time fugitive slave who within the nineteenth century rose to change into a number one abolitionist, activist, author and orator, in addition to the primary African American to be nominated for vp of america.
Diop is not any stranger to portraying the aches and hopes of Black folks internationally. All through his oeuvre, which contains historic references and costumes, he has highlighted the very important function of Black and African figures in world historical past, celebrated the dignity of African migrants and refugees, weaved collectively the historical past of Black protests from the Selma march to the Soweto rebellion in South Africa, and examined the impression of local weather change on Africa and the International South.
Via his daring photographs, Diop examines the interaction between African and diasporic experiences by knitting collectively the previous and current.
“I’m fascinated and stunned about how Africa remains to be current in the whole lot an African American would do; they don’t even understand it,” mentioned Diop, who lives and works in Dakar and Paris. “Typically you have a look at an African American in actuality TV and also you occur to be your sisters and your aunts due to the expressions — it’s translated and mentioned in English, however she might be in Dakar, talking Wolof.”
Omar Victor Diop
In a 2015 self-portrait (prime), from Diop’s sequence “Venture Diaspora,” the artist emulates Frederick Douglass, who was probably the most photographed man of his period. Douglass sat for over 160 portraits, together with a daguerreotype circa 1855 (backside), to problem detrimental representations of African Individuals.
Cultural Archive/Alamy
In a 2015 self-portrait (prime), from Diop’s sequence “Venture Diaspora,” the artist emulates Frederick Douglass, who was probably the most photographed man of his period. Douglass sat for over 160 portraits, together with a daguerreotype circa 1855 (backside), to problem detrimental representations of African Individuals.
Diop is interested by creating connection and group by means of his work, whereas additionally utilizing historical past to bridge the experiences of individuals of African descent. By highlighting figures like Douglass or occasions such because the Girls’s Warfare in Nigeria, he mentioned, he hoped to not solely kickstart a dialog throughout the upcoming era but additionally deepen the connection between Africa and the diaspora.
“There are such a lot of inspiring tales that may have important resonance on the continent and vice versa,” he mentioned. “I believe that there’s an absolute want for extra interplay. We do not even know one another sufficient.”
Diop was born in Dakar in 1980 to a father who’s a chartered accountant and a mom who’s a lawyer. He grew to become a full-time artist over a decade in the past, after years of learning finance in Senegal and France and dealing in company communications in Dakar, Nairobi and Lagos.
The self-taught Diop, whose tableaux have been exhibited everywhere in the world, builds on the wealthy custom of the West African studio portraiture practiced by artists like Mama Casset (Senegal), Malick Sidibé (Mali) and Samuel Fosso (Nigeria). However his work is just not sure by the traditions of studio images: As he embarks on a undertaking, Diop obsessively reads about his topics, talks to historians and even tries to copy his topics’ sartorial decisions, such because the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fits or Trayvon Martin’s hooded sweatshirt.
“The imagery of trend, the language of trend is a software for me to enter the minds” of viewers, he mentioned. “It is creating a picture that may be very enticing as a approach to camouflage the heavy topics that I’m bringing. And it is usually a manner for me to have a good time the reminiscence that I’m bringing.”
In early October, Diop introduced a brand new undertaking referred to as “Being There,” which explores the place of race and id in America within the years following World Warfare II.
Diop can be planning on producing academic supplies, together with books and video games, that can interact younger African and diasporic audiences on points like artwork and local weather change. He hopes to indicate how their tales of wrestle and success are interconnected throughout centuries and continents.
“I’m a agency believer that there’s an African spirit of resilience, of excellence regardless of the whole lot that has been thrown at us,” he mentioned.
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