Asíko on Femininity, Identity and Heritage
Asíko is a contemporary photographer based in London. His work as been exhibited at Southbank Centre and the Gallery of African Art, he had his first solo exhibition in November, 2016 at the Rele Gallery in Lagos, Nigeria. His work shall be featured in Blue Milk’s upcoming volume ‘Movement’ and he recently spoke to Blue Milk about his art.
Asíko: Interestingly, a few months back, I asked myself the same question: why do I shoot women?
I think my mother had quite a strong influence on me. My mum is a very strong character and, in many ways, shaped my perception of womanhood and femininity. However, having got married and lived a little more, I have realised that there is no single female identity and there should be no expectations regarding gender and the ways people are. This understanding has spilled into what I shoot.
Blue Milk: Your two major series so far, Layers Project and Adorned, have focused on the female subject in vastly different ways but what unites them seems to be the way in which they force the viewer to reconsider their expectations and perceptions of ‘femininity’ and also to question what this concept even means.
While I want to affect things in this way, I never go into the studio with the aim of changing the way people think. I view women as strong and equal to men. We are partners on a ship going to the same destination. We are working hand-in-hand.
This perspective is very different from how I was raised. My father just sat back, didn’t do any house work. In my culture, in Nigerian culture, women, it’s sad to say, are treated as second class citizens and, for me, I wish that dynamic and that narrative would change and that is something that my work may explore.
In October 2016, you had your first solo exhibition at the Rele Gallery in Lagos. What was the reception of your exploration of concepts like femininity and gender roles in Nigeria?
It’s funny, I was interviewed on the day of the private viewing and one of the guys from the Nigerian Guardian mentioned how my work is quite different because the subjects aren’t wearing many clothes. He said that is not really heard of or done in Nigerian culture and art and he felt it was very ‘different’.
These images have a sense of liberation. These powerful women are showing their sexuality, their sensuality, their strength. I think that was very much felt in Nigeria and by those who saw my work there. They are about women and culture and their intersection. I’m glad people see my work as different but I just wanted to create work which I feel is important and personal to me.
How important is the concept of identity for you in your life and your work, and how much are these recent series, Layers and Adorned, explorations, not so much of ‘femininity’ but of identity.
You’re right. They are explorations of identity and, in many ways, me exploring my own identity.
I often ask myself what identity is. I feel that everybody has multiple identities. So many things come together to form who you are.
Me, for example, I am a hybrid kid: I’m a product of two cultures. I have my British identity. I’ve been here for 20 years and I think I’m British in the way I relate to people, the way I talk to people, the kind of things I eat, the way I might even be polite.
However, I am still discovering what ‘Britishness’ means and I think the moments I discover my own identity the most is when I move from one place to another — when I’m displaced in some way. For example, when I travel back to Nigeria I understand and acknowledge my Britishness in ways that I don’t when I am in London.
I was also living in Nigeria for the first 17 years of my life which is significant and many of these years are often the most pivotal of our lives. My whole childhood mentality was Nigerian. Many, many subconscious things that have been fed into my mind have been from Nigeria, also I go back quite often and am around Nigerians quite a bit.
I am the son of these two countries and cultures, they both influence my work massively.
Many of the photographs (and the figures in the photographs) from the Adorned series are quite literally adorned with jewellery. This seems to not only the mix the mediums of photography, fashion and jewellery, but mix two cultures too.
I was always very interested in working with a stylist to realise my vision of photographs adorned with ceremonial Nigerian jewellery. She is a wonderful jeweller who I really admire and the pieces she made are incredible.
The jewellery has so many cultural and social implications and to some extent represents identity. In Nigeria, women are ceremonially adorned with so much jewellery it literally takes the place of clothes. Each piece of jewellery they wear, as well as being an aesthetically wonderful object, is an incredibly important object socially, culturally and spiritually.
I guess in that way these images do mix Nigerian and British, or Western European, culture. Many people have seen the images as fashion photography, an aesthetic I suppose is Western, and to mix that with Nigerian-style jewellery would be to merge those cultures to some extent.
How possible is it, then, for an art piece, whether that is a piece of jewellery or photograph or both, to represent an identity?
Well, as I said, identity is a complex concept. It is made up of thousands and thousands of different experiences and people, friends and family, countries and cultures, societies and spiritualities. Your identity is made up of what you have seen and heard and smelt from the moment your life begins.
I think there are certain artists who can represent an identity in an image. I do think its possible. If there are multiple identities, surely there are multiple ways of representing them. However, it is as important and special to represent different aspects of identities in images. I have never set out to do this but the idea of someone in years to come looking at my work and getting a sense of me being both Nigerian and British would be quite special.
What do you set out to do with your art?
The world is filled with so much noise, you just have to go onto the internet to see this. so many people are creating and the most important thing to do to get heard is by creating things that are you, which reflect you. However wacky, crazy, strange, thats what it should be.
I just try and be honest by exploring things personal to me…
