• Stories of the Unseen is a presentation of work from photographer and visual artist, Tayo Adekunle by Edinburgh Printmakers. Adekunle’s...
    Tayo Adekunle, Acceptance of Duality, giclee print, 2024. 

    Stories of the Unseen is a presentation of work from photographer and visual artist, Tayo Adekunle by Edinburgh Printmakers. Adekunle’s practice explores issues surrounding race, gender and sexuality as well as racial and colonial history, predominantly through portraiture and self-portraiture. Works from Reclamation of the Exposition (2020) explore the fetishization of black women’s bodies, through the human displays in ethnographic expositions. In a new body of work, Adekunle explores the power that stories hold in the preservation of history, tradition and culture. Referencing Èṣù, an Orisha from Yoruba Spiritual Tradition in a conversation about misrepresentation. 

     

    Tayo Adekunle (b. 1997) is a Nigerian-British visual artist from West Yorkshire, based in London. Using predominantly portraiture and self-portraiture, her work explores issues surrounding race, gender and sexuality. In an interrogation of racial and colonial history, her work is centered around reworking tropes and narratives about black people and black culture. Tayo received her BA(Hons) in Photography at Edinburgh College of Art in 2020. Since then she has been an artist in residence at institutions around the UK including the Southbank Centre in London, Leeds Playhouse in Leeds, Hospitalfield in Arbroath, Dundee and Edinburgh Printmakers in Edinburgh.  

     

  • Stories of the Unseen focuses on those who have been misrepresented, mistreated or ignored in history. The exhibition includes some...
    Tayo Adekunle, Guardian, toyobo polymer photogravure, 2024

    Stories of the Unseen focuses on those who have been misrepresented, mistreated or ignored in history. The exhibition includes some of the artist’s previous work as well as a new body of work that is the result of a Toyobo residency at Edinburgh Printmakers.

     

    In a new body of work, Adekunle explores the power that stories hold in the preservation of history, tradition and culture. The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 contributed to the division of Africa between European powers and to the formation of the countries of Africa that we know today. Maps show the progressive change in boundaries on the continent and illustrate the imposed changes these boundaries brought. Inspired by the creation of borders and the formation of countries, Adekunle has created a textile print using maps of Africa from different periods of time - from pre-colonial to the present day.

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  • New Works

    • Èṣù, toyobo photopolymer photogravure, 2024

      Èṣù, toyobo photopolymer photogravure, 2024
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    • Guardian, toyobo photopolymer photogravure, 2024

      Guardian, toyobo photopolymer photogravure, 2024
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  • Adekunle's new work explores the importance of storytelling in heritage and cultural traditions. The fabric in which the figures are draped, as well as in the installation Scramble, represents the division of Africa between European powers.

     

    The two Toyobo prints, Éṣù and Guardian, are of the figure of Éṣù, who is considered to be the guardian of gateways, pathways, and crossroads.

     

  • Reclamation of the Exposition

  • Works from Reclamation of the Exposition (2020) explore the commodification, fetishization and sexualisation of the black women’s bodies, specifically through the human displays in ethnographic expositions in the 18th and 19th centuries. The work is influenced by ethnographic photographs which were circulated as pornography. Black (and other racial minority) bodies were photographed either naked in front of a white background, stripped of their identity, or surrounded by random tropical plants to make the photographs seem authentic. Using self-portraiture and digital collage whilst drawing from Prince Roland Napoleon Bonaparte’s photographic collection ‘Boshimans et Hottentots’, the works combine the contemporary with historic ways of being seen. In the larger works, Adekunle turns herself into a spectacle, recalling the use of black people’s bodies for European entertainment.

     

  • Artefact Series

  • The smaller Artefact (2020) works see the artist placed alongside the women photographed in Bonaparte’s collection. In mirroring the stances of those photographed, Adekunle reflects on the ways in which the legacy of the treatment of these women and women like them exists today.

     

  • Yemoja
    Yemoja, giclee print, 2021

    Yemoja

    An important part of Adekunle’s practice is how she can use her work to celebrate the richness of her heritage. Yemoja (2021), is a depiction of the motherly Orisha from Yoruba spiritual practice. She has associations with water and the moon and is often linked with the figure of the Virgin Mary in South America and Afro-Cuban practices. Shown with visual markers of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the work illustrates the duality of Adekunle’s practice. Yemoja acts as a negotiation of painful histories while also representing a celebration of connection with cultural history.
  • Tayo Adekunle’s residency and exhibition are supported by the British Council. We would also like to thank Hahnemühle for supporting the production of Tayo Adekunle's work.