Messums London presents its first contemporary photography show by artists Nii Obodai and Justin Keene. Through a selection of delicately composed and ethereal images, this exhibition allows us to consider within an aesthetic language our relationship with nature and read cultural history through the environment. In the photographs taken by Nii Obodai and Justin Keene, the land figures as a sentient being and a character in its own right.
Exhibited alongside each other for the very first time, Nii Obodai and Justin Keene belong to two generations of photographers exploring the marks of history in today’s African landscape while questioning their own notions of home. Collaboration is central to their work, oral stories and testimonies narrated by inhabitants translated into their image-making. Their work reflects on people’s relationship with the land, mining and extraction as instrumental factors in the colonial and economic history of Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa respectively, and interrogate what the future might behold.
At time outsiders, at time insiders, both photographers’ intimate explorations of Africa as a post colony intrinsically shape the content and form of their images and the stories they choose to tell. In both of their works, the strongest points are quietly spoken.
Artist Talks
Land as a Conscious Being with Nii Obodai
recorded on Friday 14 January
Land as a conscious being: Nii Obodai presents ‘Big Dreams’ and ‘Paradox of Paradise’.
Scratching the Surface with Justin Keene
Justin Keene and Dr Julie Bonzon discusses Justin’s series ‘Walls in the Riverbed’.
Contemporary African Photography in Focus
Online talk Nii Obodai and Justin Keene in conversation with Stephanie Blomkamp of Oath Magazine.
