Hi everyone,
Attached is my final photobook.
Thank you for a wonderful semester.
Final Project — Favour
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Author Archives: Favour Ofuokwu
Final Project — Favour
Hi Everyone, this is my final project. It is a compilation of different members of my family through various moments in time. I have incorporated different Nigerian textiles and fabrics to highlight a significant part of my identity. It’s not entirely done, a lot of the text that is present in the beginning needs to be converted to handwritten text, I was struggling on how to convert a word doc to the software. I guess my number question I have for you guys is there other things you think I can incorporate.
Progress — Favour
So this is my progress thus far. For my project, I am putting together a photo book, similar to a family album. I am showing off different members of my family while incorporating a collage technique. Some of the photos on the bottom are pictures of some Nigerian fabrics my mom and grandma have at home. I want to include some aspects of my heritage in this final project. I am still figuring out other elements to put the collage to gether. I only put snippets of what I have so far, but that’s because I am kind of figuring out what the final product will be as I am going.
Slow Seeing, Outside My Window – Favour Ofuokwu
These are all photos of the street outside the window of my bedroom all at different times throughout a few days this past week. I live off the main road, so as it gets warmer, it starts getting noisy with motocycles, ambulances, people blasting music out of their cars, and I usually see a little more people moving about. But with it being quarantine, this street has been quieter than usual, and all of the same cars stay in the same place. These photos are really interesting, all images are taken at different points of time, yet the only things that seem to be changing is the light of the sky.
Inspiration – Favour Ofuokwu
Leslie Hewitt, Riffs on Real Time (3/10), 2006-09, Chromogenic Print, 30 x 24 in
This image incorporates the collage technique and utilizes text in a way that makes the photo look like a story. I also really like it POV is as if the viewer is looking down at the image. This is a technique I was thinking or incorporating in my own project.
Latoya Ruby Frazier, The Notion of Family https://aperture.org/shop/frazier-notion-of-family-pb
Latoya Ruby Frazier says in a video describing this photo book that it is, “More than an art book. It’s more than a photography book. it is a history book.” With my project, I hope to go through the history of many of my family members through images, giving the viewer the opportunity to see how people have not just aged but taken on new identities through time.
Carrie Mae Weems, The Kitchen Table Series, 1990
I am assuming that the relationship between both of the subject is that of mother and daughter. It looks that the mother maybe scolding her daughter, which is one aspect that encompasses the relationship between a parent and child. This relationship is something I would want to incorporate in my work as well.
Lorna Simpson, Easy Way to Remember, 2001, Film, 16 mm film transferred to DVD, 2.35 min looped https://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/lorna-simpson
I’m a little obssess with the ways a person can be remebered even as they wither through time. Photographs are a tool that help us remeber aspects of an individual.
The first five minutes of this video was moving, and exactly what I would want to achieve with this project and future work.
“Questioning what has been left in and what has been left out. And what is my relationship to what has been made historically and what has been left out. So then, how to reframe, hot to reposition, and how to insert for the first time, a body that has not often been there. Or to pull forward a body that rests in the background. It’s very difficult because at a certain point you realize that ‘I’m not his subject.’ This historical body has not been for the most part, the subject of these great painters. From the 19th century or the 20th century or as we move into the 21st, it is not apart of their imagination. It is not apart of their fantasy. But of course, art has a great to do with imagining the unimageable.”
Article from CNN https://www.cnn.com/style/article/photography-nigerian-brides/index.html
My Nigerian Ethnicity is an important part of my identity and I want to incorporate it in my project by showcasing Nigerian textiles as the background.
Article from Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/3017076/what-old-family-photo-albums-teach-us-about-creativity
My final project is based on going through my families old photo albums. Erik Kessels’ exhibit is essentially an enlarged photo album which would be an interesting concept to potentially explore.
Amanda Greene, Rejoice https://www.aint-bad.com/product/books/amanda-greene-rejoice/
This photo book looks vibraint and coloful. Initially, I decided that the photos I would produce would be in color, so this is some indpiration. I really like in this photo book, Greene “explores ideas of time and history,” and how people and places change overtime.
Trent Went, https://trevorwentt.pixieset.com/printshop/
These 2 photographs are by the same photographer that I cam across on youtube and fell in love with his work. I really like the idea of incorporating words with an image and sending out an explicit message written on the photo.
History Through Her Life – Favour Ofuokwu
Respected – Favour Ofuokwu
My “winter garden photograph” is a young photo of my maternal grandfather. If I had to guess, I would say he was either in his late twenties or early thirties. It is a portrait photo of him sitting up straight in a suit, with his lips slightly curved up. Personally, I did not know my grandfather very well. He knew me as a baby, but I didn’t see him again until I was 12 years old on a family trip to Nigeria, and, sadly, he died a year later. Before meeting him, my mom would tell me stories of him, and she always remembered him fondly. She used to describe her father as a disciplinarian; he was very strict and wouldn’t take any bs from his children. He was highly educated, hard-working, and successful, which was a feat, in and of itself, because he came from a poor background. He had a bank job and owned his own poultry farming business. Bank jobs in Nigeria hold the prestige as being a doctor or a lawyer in the U.S. He would travel abroad to different places in Europe for business, which was extremely uncommon, even for people to do in Nigeria today. I asked my mom once that if he was able to travel abroad, then why didn’t he ever come to the U.S.? She said that he didn’t agree with the ways the U.S. did things and would never go. He held himself to a pretty high standard, one could even say he was a little cocky based on the way my mother and grandmother have described him to me, and I feel like that is radiated in the photo.
The photo I have is actually a photo of the original photo that I took on my trip to Nigeria. I completely forgot I had it until I went through all my family photos. To a regular person, they would see just a black man, maybe think he is a respected black man because of his clothing and the way he is sitting. However, I see a black man who was able to beat the odds, especially during a time when the consensus was that African people were less than. He did business with white people and was respected by them.
I am delighted I was at least able to meet him. I met him when he was much older (in his 80’s), so “winter garden photograph” of him isn’t what I saw in 2012, but I see some resemblances between him in the photo and what he looked like when he died. Even in death, he is respected and remembered fondly by his family community.
Childish Hangout – Favour Ofuokwu
As a kid, my siblings, I used to spent a lot of time playing with each other outside, with no cares in the world. A lot of the images are reiterations of photos of us playing as kids. It is interesting; currently, we’re living in quarantine, so that means that we have a lot of free time. And that free time can be used to “play” and be outside like we used to when we were kids. But now that we have “grown-up,” we tend to stay indoors, focusing all of our time on our phones, laptops, and just doing our own thing. That is not to say that we do not talk or speak to each other, but I do think that technology does make it easier not to enjoy each other’s presence as we used to. However, I could potentially be using technology as an excuse because as you get older, your priorities shift, and you don’t have the luxury to just play with no cares in the world. These photos are flashbacks to a simpler time where we had no worries and could spend our time playing.
Pictures that Matter ~ Lynn, MA
Life has changed drastically as a result of COVID-19. It’s crazy to think about what life was just a month ago. Now, we have to contemplate before leaving the house or touching elbows instead of embracing each other just to ensure that we’re not potentially exposing ourselves to anything.
Most of the images I posted encompass a lot of the things, people, and surroundings that my family and I have been praying for. My family is very religious, so we have been coming together a lot to pray for families who have lost people, medical providers, and the end of COVID-19. Some of these images are of my family gathered to pray.
Lastly, one of these photos is of my great-grandmother, who died a few years ago. She died at the age of 110! I have been thinking about her a lot. I wonder if she ever saw a pandemic like the one we’re experiencing and what how her encounter would have differed as a result of living in a period when technology was not as advanced while living in Nigeria.
These are just some of my thoughts and feelings I have been experiencing during this time and the people and surroundings in my life that bring some type of relief to our current state.