Nii Obodai and Justin Keene – Resonances

Justin Keene, Tayba, Cape Town, 2020, from the series ‘It Must Be Built From Ashes’. © Justin Keene

Nii Obodai and Justin Keene (previously featured on Paper Journal) are two photographers of two generations, exploring the marks of history in today’s African landscape while questioning their own notion of home. At times outsiders, at times insiders, each of these photographers value collaboration and draw on oral histories and testimonies to inform their image-making. They are exhibiting together for the first time in Resonances at Messums London, until the 11 February 2022.

Nii Obodai (b. 1968) has had an extensive photographic career over the last two decades, deploying the medium to document the unseen and everyday in Africa. Photographing in black and white, his contemplative images draw attention to the scars and traces that remain on the land. The environments photographed – Mozambique and Ghana, where Nii Obodai grew up – bear witness to conflicted stories, shaped by the events of colonial and post-colonial eras.

Based in the UK, Justin Keene (b. 1989) directs his photographic lens to South Africa, where his parents lived. Throughout his lyrical and poetic imagery, Keene explores ideas of identity and representation, as well as his conflicting relationship with this country, its colonial past, and the so-called ‘born free’ generation.

Their work dwells on the people’s historic relationship with the land: mining and extraction as instrumental factors in the colonial and economic history of Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa. At the same time, their images question what the future may hold.

On Friday the 4th of February, Nii Obodai and Justin Keene will be in conversation with Stephanie Blomkamp, founder of the South African magazine Oath, on the visibility, circulation and championing of African photography today. Tickets for the online talk Contemporary African Photography in Focus are available on Eventbrite.

Justin Keene, Lilienfeld Brothers, Hopetown, 2021, from the series ‘Walls in the Riverbed’. © Justin Keene
Justin Keene, Main Street, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2021, from the series ‘Walls in the Riverbed’. © Justin Keene
Justin Keene, School Fence, Cape Town, 2019, from the series ‘It Must Be Built From Ashes’. © Justin Keene
Justin Keene, Silica, South Africa, 2020, from the series ‘Walls in the Riverbed’. © Justin Keene
Nii Obodai, Forest 1, Kibi, Eastern Region, Ghana, 2015, from the series ‘Big Dreams’. © Nii Obodai
Nii Obodai, Maputo Matola Rio Salt Works 3, Maputo, Mozambique, 2017, from the series ‘Paradox of Paradise’. © Nii Obodai
Nii Obodai, Matola Rio Salt Works 1, Mozambique, 2017, from the series ‘Paradox of Paradise’. © Nii Obodai
Nii Obodai, The Boy And The Beetle On A String, Ghana, 2010, from the series ‘1996/ Who Knows Tomorrow’. © Nii Obodai
Nii Obodai, Untitled 3, Ghana, 2010, from the series ‘Portrait as We Are/ Who Knows Tomorrow’. © Nii Obodai

Resonances is showing at Messums London, 12 January – 11 February 2022.

Tickets for the online talk Contemporary African Photography in Focus are available on Eventbrite.