Mikael Chukwuma Owunna,
4 Queer African Women in the Snow, 2017,
Inkjet print on Kodak Pro Endura, gloss finish,
24 x 36 in.
Gallery Purchase
Mikael Chukwuma Owunna, a Nigerian-Swedish American photographer and engineer, explores the black body and queerness and imagines new realities for marginalized identities through his art. In his first monograph published in 2019, Limitless Africans, Owunna challenges the notion that it is “un-African” to be queer. Through his research, he discovered that queerness did indeed exist in pre-colonial Africa, but was suppressed and erased by European colonial convictions of what the African body is capable of and limited to. These ideas continue to shape and affect African culture and politics today.
By taking portraits of queer Africans throughout the diaspora, Owunna created new worlds of freedom and expression for each participant and himself. Moreover, he placed the subjects of his photos in front of different backdrops including Belgian buildings made from Congolese gold, the palace of King Leopold the 2nd, and rivers–as bodies of water can be places of danger for asylum seekers. Thus, Limitless Africans embodies not only much needed representation of African queerness, but also a reclamation of the oppression that queer Africans have historically and contemporaneously face.
The Van Every/Smith Galleries recently added Owunna’s 2017 photograph 4 Queer African Women in the Snow, from Limitless Africans, to our permanent art collection. It is Owunna’s first group portrait in the series, shot in Brooklyn and featuring from left to right: Yéwá (Nigerian, she/they), Badu (Ivorian, she/her), Amadi (Nigerian, she/her), and Mai’Yah (Liberian, she/they). While the individual portraits are powerful, this piece is especially moving because of the importance of community and interpersonal relationships formed between queer folx.
When thinking critically about institutionalized standards of “good citizenship” and its requirements, like heterosexual nuclear families, the queer community offers a challenge through its found family dynamics. It is an alternative that centers around mutual support and inclusion. For Owunna to include this group portrait is to tell a fuller story of the four individuals in relation to each other and of queerness in general, while suggesting narratives of transnational migration and bonds.
“To the queer Africans that would be shunned by their community, family and/or country. To the queer Africans that are in desperate need of an answer and feeling lost as to where to look for it. I know the feeling…You are bold and filled with strength. You are not alone. I’m with you. Limitless is with you.” Mai’Yah, Limitless Africans [1].
It was a formative experience for Owunna, at age 23, to see queer Africans visualized for the first time in Zanele Muholi’s photography. And it was a highlight of my Davidson experience to have attended Owunna’s lecture and his exhibition at the E. Craig Wall Jr. Academic Center last fall, one that continues to inform my own academics and thoughts about art. I trust that having this piece in the Van Every/Smith collection will provide the Davidson community a source of inspiration and instigate more necessary conversations about queerness, intersectionality, and diaspora.
[1] Owunna, Mikael Chukwuma. Limitless Africans. FotoEvidence Press, 2019.