Murmures

Le décès d’Okhai Ojeikere
février 2014 | Décès de personnalités culturelles | Photo | Nigeria

Français

Le photographe nigérian J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, rendu célèbre par ses clichés en noir et blanc de coiffures de femmes africaines, est décédé le 2 février 2014 à Lagos à l’âge de 83 ans.

Chez les femmes, une seule chose l’intéressait : leurs coiffures magnifiques et magistrales qu’il comparait volontiers aux chefs d’œuvres de la sculpture. Sa série photographique Hair Style de femmes nigérianes est devenue mondialement connue et reconnue.

Lire la suite de l’article de RFI [ici]

Et lire l’excellente analyse que les commissaires Bisi Silva et Aura Seikkula ont fait de son travail (parue dans le # 88 de la revue Africultures en juin 2012) replacé dans le contexte socio-politique de l’époque des indépendances, ce qui nous permet de mesurer sa portée historique. [ici]

English

J.D.’Okhai Ojeikere (1930-2 February 2014) was a Nigerian photographer who is known for his work with unique hairstyles found in Nigeria.

J.D.’Okhai Ojeikere, also known as Ovbiomu-Emai, was born in 1930 in a rural South Western Nigeria village. He worked and lived in Ketu, Nigeria. At the age of twenty he pursued a future in photography, which was out of the ordinary for people in Nigeria, especially those in his village. Cameras were not of high demand and were of low priority as they were considered a luxury. However,’Okhai Ojeikere was passionate about photography and in 1950 bought a modest Brownie D camera without flash, and had a friend teach him the fundamentals of photography.[2][3]

‘Okhai Ojeikere started out as a darkroom assistant in 1954 at the Ministry of Information in Ibadan. After Nigeria gained its independence in 1960, Ojeikere pursued his first job. In 1951 he became a studio photographer, under Steve Rhodes, for Television House Ibadan. In 1963 till 1975 Ojeikere the next step in his career began in publicity where he worked at West Africa Publicity in Lagos. During his time in publicity, specifically in the year 1967, he joined the Nigerian Arts Council. In 1968 he began one of his largest curations where he documented Nigerian hairstyles. This was a trademark of Ojeikere as he had a thousand pictures of different African women hair. (Wikipedia)
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